1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:13,120 Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hey everybody, Molly Conger here. You've probably 2 00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:16,439 Speaker 1: noticed that this is a rerun. No, your podcast app 3 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:20,279 Speaker 1: isn't glitching. There's no new guy this week. The show 4 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:22,560 Speaker 1: hasn't been around long enough to have a huge back 5 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:26,000 Speaker 1: catalog to reach into on days like this, I can't 6 00:00:26,040 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: dig through the archives and pick an episode from a 7 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:30,800 Speaker 1: year ago that maybe you missed the first time around, 8 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:33,400 Speaker 1: or listened to so long ago that you already forgot 9 00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:36,960 Speaker 1: how it ended. But today is the last Thursday in 10 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,200 Speaker 1: the month of November, and in the United States, that's 11 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:43,960 Speaker 1: a holiday. If it's a holiday you celebrate in whatever way, 12 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:47,720 Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying it. I'm not sure how listening 13 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:51,040 Speaker 1: to weird little guys factors into your holiday enjoyment. That's 14 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,960 Speaker 1: kind of weird. But I'm not here to tell you 15 00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:57,520 Speaker 1: what to do. Running this old episode means I got 16 00:00:57,520 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 1: to take a few days off this week to spend 17 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: with my family, which I'm grateful for. I know not 18 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:06,120 Speaker 1: everybody has that luxury. Whatever you're doing today, I hope 19 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,800 Speaker 1: you've got the day off. Rory, the brilliant mind behind 20 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 1: the perfect placement of all the music in the show, 21 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:15,280 Speaker 1: and the guy with the unenviable job of editing out 22 00:01:15,319 --> 00:01:18,760 Speaker 1: all the times I burp into my microphone does not 23 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,600 Speaker 1: have work today, and we should all celebrate that he 24 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:28,120 Speaker 1: deserves a break from toiling away at the burp removal machine. Sorry, Rory. 25 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,520 Speaker 1: So here's a weird little guy I already told you about, 26 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:44,760 Speaker 1: and I'll be back next week with new weird guys. 27 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:48,400 Speaker 1: In nineteen forty eight, there is a rash of cross 28 00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:53,040 Speaker 1: burnings in Suffolk. Virginia. Newspapers throughout the late forties and 29 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:56,240 Speaker 1: all through the fifties assure the reader that there is 30 00:01:56,280 --> 00:02:00,840 Speaker 1: no Ku Klux Klan activity in Virginia. Ooklan groups had 31 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:03,120 Speaker 1: more or less died out in the mid forties, and 32 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: Virginia wouldn't really see a rise in widespread organized clan 33 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,760 Speaker 1: activity until the threat of integrated schools whipped aggrieved white 34 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:13,239 Speaker 1: men back into a frenzy in the fifties. But the 35 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:16,240 Speaker 1: lack of a clear leadership structure or the formal blessing 36 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,000 Speaker 1: of some grand dragon or imperial wizard in some other 37 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:22,360 Speaker 1: state didn't seem to deter the one hundred men in 38 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:25,880 Speaker 1: robes who set fire to a twelve foot cross in 39 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:29,920 Speaker 1: a peanut field in Nurneyville, and whether or not the 40 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:34,079 Speaker 1: local prosecutor believed that the clan still existed. Everyone in 41 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:37,960 Speaker 1: the South knows what a burning cross means, and it 42 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,840 Speaker 1: was the third one in that neighborhood in recent months. 43 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:46,280 Speaker 1: The local prosecutor had simply shrugged, it's not illegal to 44 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:50,200 Speaker 1: burn a cross. Two thousand members of a local peanut 45 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,360 Speaker 1: workers union approved a resolution demanding a response from the 46 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:57,359 Speaker 1: governor and Attorney General, writing, we reject the hair splitting 47 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,240 Speaker 1: thinking of some commonwealth authorities regarding what constitutes violation of 48 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,680 Speaker 1: the law. The fact remains that one hundred white robed 49 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:08,760 Speaker 1: persons burned across in the field of NH. Bradshaw. Whether 50 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:11,600 Speaker 1: this group was the KKK or a similar organization is 51 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:19,440 Speaker 1: not important. The tactics of intimidation and terrorism are. That 52 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: same year, nineteen forty eight, twin boys, Barry and Bruce 53 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:29,160 Speaker 1: Black were born in Pennsylvania. Berry didn't burn that cross 54 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:31,520 Speaker 1: in the peanut field. He was just a baby then 55 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:35,600 Speaker 1: given some time to grow. Though his name would one 56 00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:40,600 Speaker 1: day become synonymous with crossburning in Virginia, he was barely 57 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:43,400 Speaker 1: out of diapers when Virginia did finally outlaw cross burning 58 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:47,120 Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two, and he was decades into his 59 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:49,280 Speaker 1: career as a clan leader when he lit the cross 60 00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: that would take him all the way to the Supreme Court. 61 00:03:54,800 --> 00:04:15,760 Speaker 1: I'm Molly Conger, and this is weird. Little guys. There 62 00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:19,760 Speaker 1: is a story that I've been writing and rewriting for years, 63 00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:22,680 Speaker 1: digging deeper into the past while I wait for the 64 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,320 Speaker 1: future to deliver some kind of ending. I have notebooks 65 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:29,760 Speaker 1: full of scribbled transcriptions of courtroom testimony, and a hard 66 00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:34,479 Speaker 1: drive full of grainy footage, and folders upon folders labeled 67 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:38,440 Speaker 1: with men's names, each one containing varying degrees of a 68 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:41,159 Speaker 1: half baked biographical sketch of a man who lit a 69 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:46,120 Speaker 1: torch one summer night in twenty seventeen. Lately, I'm combing 70 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:48,520 Speaker 1: back through my notes about the events of August eleventh, 71 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,960 Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, because unless something changes in the next week 72 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:54,680 Speaker 1: or so, I'll be spending a few days in October 73 00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,920 Speaker 1: sitting in my favorite seat at the county courthouse. It's 74 00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:00,000 Speaker 1: the aisle seat in the second row, on the day 75 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,880 Speaker 1: defendant's side of the bench. I don't know why that 76 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:05,640 Speaker 1: one's my favorite, but if I can't sit there, this 77 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,240 Speaker 1: is not right to date, Twelve men who march with 78 00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:11,800 Speaker 1: a torch here in Charlottesville seven years ago have been 79 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:14,200 Speaker 1: charged under a Virginia law that makes it a felony 80 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:17,840 Speaker 1: to burn an object with the intent to intimidate. And 81 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,560 Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about some of those men. 82 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:25,120 Speaker 1: I am there is some real weird little guy behavior 83 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:29,680 Speaker 1: going on in a lot of their backstories, but not today. 84 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:35,359 Speaker 1: As always, we have to start before the beginning. In 85 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:37,880 Speaker 1: the year and a half since those charges were first filed, 86 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:42,359 Speaker 1: I've written the case citation Commonwealth v. Black in my 87 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:47,039 Speaker 1: little notebook probably one hundred times. Commonwealth v. Black was 88 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:49,719 Speaker 1: the Supreme Court case that held that the original version 89 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: of Virginia's crossburning law was unconstitutional. The law was rewritten 90 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:56,839 Speaker 1: in response to this challenge, and the current version of 91 00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:00,200 Speaker 1: the statute is what's being used to prosecute the torch marchers. 92 00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:05,320 Speaker 1: So commonwealthy Black, that's all I really needed to know. 93 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:09,800 Speaker 1: Some clansmen burned across and he challenged the law, and 94 00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:14,320 Speaker 1: he won, and we changed the law. That's good enough 95 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,839 Speaker 1: to get by, But how many times can you write 96 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:21,720 Speaker 1: a man's name without bothering to find out who he was? 97 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:25,040 Speaker 1: So I set out to get a little more context 98 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:28,039 Speaker 1: on the man who brought the case. But what I 99 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:32,359 Speaker 1: found wasn't just some boring bit of backstory about constitutional 100 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,760 Speaker 1: law and legislative history. I mean, we're definitely going to 101 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:39,120 Speaker 1: do some of that, but what I found was a 102 00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:42,600 Speaker 1: complicated story of small town bigotry and the people who 103 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:45,760 Speaker 1: stand up to it. Barry Black was the leader of 104 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:48,760 Speaker 1: a clan group in Pennsylvania whose hatred touched the lives 105 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:53,120 Speaker 1: of people whose stories are worth knowing. This episode is 106 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:55,440 Speaker 1: just the first half of very black story, and we 107 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,240 Speaker 1: won't even get to his precedent setting appeal until next week. 108 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,440 Speaker 1: This week gets just a strange little stroll through some 109 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:04,400 Speaker 1: of the side characters in the life of a man 110 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:07,360 Speaker 1: who donned a pointy hood to infringe on the civil 111 00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:10,800 Speaker 1: rights of everyone around him, but just kept going to 112 00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:14,240 Speaker 1: court to fight for his own. So before we can 113 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:16,800 Speaker 1: talk about a lit tiki torch on a college campus, 114 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:21,080 Speaker 1: we have to talk about a fiery cross on a hillside. 115 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:24,480 Speaker 1: We have to talk about Barry Black, the clansman who 116 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:26,720 Speaker 1: fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court 117 00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:33,800 Speaker 1: and won. Barry Elton Black and his twin brother, Bruce, 118 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:38,640 Speaker 1: were born two months before their mother's seventeenth birthday. Their 119 00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:43,960 Speaker 1: twenty three year old father, also named Bruce, didn't stick around. 120 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:46,600 Speaker 1: When the boys were two, the nineteen fifty census shows 121 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:48,640 Speaker 1: they were living with their mother at her parents' home, 122 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:50,920 Speaker 1: and their father was living a few miles down the 123 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,040 Speaker 1: road as a lodger in an elderly divorcees boarding house. 124 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:58,560 Speaker 1: Barry's obituary says he was a Vietnam veteran, that he 125 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:02,560 Speaker 1: was in the Navy. That's the only place I found 126 00:08:02,560 --> 00:08:06,720 Speaker 1: that information. Decades of newspaper articles about his clan hijinks 127 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:10,840 Speaker 1: never mention it. I will absolutely concede that it is 128 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,160 Speaker 1: entirely possible that he joined the Navy right out of 129 00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: high school and maybe was on one of the earliest 130 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:19,360 Speaker 1: deployments of the war. He was eighteen in nineteen sixty six, 131 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:24,040 Speaker 1: so it's possible, But by nineteen sixty eight he was 132 00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 1: too busy going to jail to go to war. In 133 00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:31,280 Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen sixty eight, Barry and his brother 134 00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:34,560 Speaker 1: were caught stripping parts of a car in a salvage yard. 135 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:38,600 Speaker 1: Two years later, Barry was back in jail again. Reports 136 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:42,400 Speaker 1: Arry and lack specificity as to exactly why he was 137 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:45,880 Speaker 1: in jail in nineteen seventy. One report at the time 138 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:49,439 Speaker 1: says it was a morals charge. Another says it was 139 00:08:49,480 --> 00:08:52,840 Speaker 1: a paternity case. A list of his arrests that appeared 140 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:55,280 Speaker 1: in an article decades later says he was awaiting trial 141 00:08:55,320 --> 00:09:01,839 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy on charges of bastardery and fornication. Sounds 142 00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:03,320 Speaker 1: like he might have just been guilty of having a 143 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:07,240 Speaker 1: good time, but he got himself into some extra trouble 144 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:11,679 Speaker 1: by escaping from the jail. Barry and two other inmates 145 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:15,120 Speaker 1: climbed a pipe, crawled through an air vent, got into 146 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: the adjoining courthouse, and escaped by jumping out an open 147 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,280 Speaker 1: window in the judge's chambers, and no one even noticed 148 00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,320 Speaker 1: the men were missing until Barry's brother called the sheriff 149 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:29,080 Speaker 1: to say he'd gotten a call from Barry earlier that 150 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:31,920 Speaker 1: afternoon and he wanted to know if his brother had 151 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:37,120 Speaker 1: posted bond The sheriff assured Bruce that no, Barry hasn't 152 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,880 Speaker 1: bonded out and he's still in a cell. But he 153 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:45,800 Speaker 1: was not. Barry was only free for about six hours 154 00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:49,520 Speaker 1: after this daring jail break. The other two men hid 155 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:52,240 Speaker 1: out in barns for over a week. Before being recaptured, 156 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:55,719 Speaker 1: but a deputy found Barry limping around town later that 157 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:58,800 Speaker 1: same evening. He'd broken bones in both of his feet 158 00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:02,640 Speaker 1: jumping out of the judge's window. A judge ordered him 159 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:05,440 Speaker 1: to pay one hundred dollars fine and the medical costs 160 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:08,360 Speaker 1: in his paternity case, and he got another year for 161 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:12,840 Speaker 1: the escape. It's not clear what the paternity case entailed, 162 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:15,120 Speaker 1: and if there is a secret child out there of 163 00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:19,200 Speaker 1: Berry Black, I couldn't find any record of it. In 164 00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:21,599 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, he went back to jail for a 165 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:25,360 Speaker 1: burglary of an auto parts store, and between stints and jail, 166 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:28,240 Speaker 1: he married his wife, Judy in nineteen seventy four, and 167 00:10:28,280 --> 00:10:31,160 Speaker 1: they had their first of six children in nineteen seventy five. 168 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:34,520 Speaker 1: And then he went back to jail in nineteen seventy 169 00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:39,000 Speaker 1: six for stealing a gun from his brother. He escaped again, 170 00:10:39,679 --> 00:10:42,600 Speaker 1: this time just walking right out the front door of 171 00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:45,479 Speaker 1: the psychiatric hospital the jail had sent him to for observation. 172 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:48,760 Speaker 1: But he was out again by nineteen seventy seven, when 173 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:50,560 Speaker 1: he was arrested for trying to buy a car with 174 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,839 Speaker 1: a check from a closed bank account. This time he 175 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,319 Speaker 1: just caught probation, and he was given probation again when 176 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:00,120 Speaker 1: he was convicted in nineteen eighty six for illegally possessing 177 00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:04,080 Speaker 1: a revolver. And that's all there really was to know 178 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:07,160 Speaker 1: about Barry Black until the late eighties. He had a 179 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: couple of kids, his wife worked as a clerk, he 180 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:12,920 Speaker 1: drove a truck, and after going to jail half a 181 00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:15,720 Speaker 1: dozen times in his twenties, he mostly stayed out of 182 00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:18,120 Speaker 1: trouble except for that gun charge in nineteen eighty six, 183 00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:22,720 Speaker 1: But by nineteen eighty nine he's a legal in his 184 00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:28,160 Speaker 1: local clan. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm 185 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:31,560 Speaker 1: being dismissive of the Ku Klux Klan as a bunch 186 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,440 Speaker 1: of silly guys in costumes who do live action role 187 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:36,959 Speaker 1: playing and who would have been better off doing something 188 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,520 Speaker 1: like joining the Society for Creative Anachronism or getting into 189 00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:43,880 Speaker 1: dungeons and Dragons. I don't know. I'm in no way 190 00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:48,760 Speaker 1: trying to minimize the decades and decades of vicious racial terror, 191 00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:52,000 Speaker 1: the violence, the lynchings, the campaigns of terror waged in 192 00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:56,080 Speaker 1: towns across the country for over a century. The clan 193 00:11:56,200 --> 00:12:02,240 Speaker 1: was very real, it was very dangerous. People died, but 194 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:05,040 Speaker 1: oh my god, do they make it hard to take 195 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:11,480 Speaker 1: them seriously with their special clan vocabulary a klegal that's 196 00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:16,760 Speaker 1: spelled like beagle, but with a KL upfront. It's an 197 00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:21,240 Speaker 1: official clan office that's basically just the local recruiter. So 198 00:12:21,320 --> 00:12:24,199 Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, Barry was responsible for recruiting new 199 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:27,559 Speaker 1: members to his local clan chapter. And at this point 200 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:29,880 Speaker 1: he's still a member of the Invisible Empire of the 201 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:34,600 Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan. So the Invisible Empire is the overarching 202 00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:39,600 Speaker 1: national organization with an Imperial Wizard overseeing it. The Empire 203 00:12:39,679 --> 00:12:43,040 Speaker 1: is subdivided into realms by state, and each realm has 204 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,960 Speaker 1: a Grand Dragon, and within each realm there are provinces. 205 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:50,000 Speaker 1: Each one is made up of, however many counties the 206 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:53,480 Speaker 1: Grand Dragon sees fit to assign the Grand Titan who 207 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:58,400 Speaker 1: oversees them. The clan had two main eras, so first 208 00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:01,080 Speaker 1: in the reconstruction era right after the Civil War, and 209 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,400 Speaker 1: then it sort of died out, and then it had 210 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,040 Speaker 1: a second era when it was revived in nineteen fifteen. 211 00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:08,719 Speaker 1: And the second era of the clan kept a lot 212 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:12,280 Speaker 1: of the goofy nineteenth century made up words, but it 213 00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:15,800 Speaker 1: seems like they lost some of the finer subdivisions. It 214 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:17,920 Speaker 1: used to be that the Grand Titan could appoint a 215 00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:21,479 Speaker 1: Grand Giant, who could in turn appoint henchmen called goblins. 216 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:25,280 Speaker 1: I don't think they kept the goblins the second time around, 217 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:31,000 Speaker 1: which just seems like a huge loss, you know. But anyway, 218 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:35,280 Speaker 1: so by nineteen ninety Barry is the Grand Titan of 219 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:39,840 Speaker 1: Western Pennsylvania. So Pennsylvania has a Grand Dragon, and the 220 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:43,880 Speaker 1: Grand Dragon appoints the Grand Titans and Burries the Grand Titan. 221 00:13:45,040 --> 00:13:47,240 Speaker 1: A nineteen ninety one report on clan activity in the 222 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:51,680 Speaker 1: United States estimates nationwide membership at about four to five 223 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:56,200 Speaker 1: thousand clansmen, with an estimated three hundred members in Pennsylvania, 224 00:13:56,480 --> 00:13:59,040 Speaker 1: and with most of that activity being in the western 225 00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:04,439 Speaker 1: half of the state in Barry's province. Under Barry's leadership, 226 00:14:04,559 --> 00:14:08,000 Speaker 1: the clan was growing again in western Pennsylvania, and he 227 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,880 Speaker 1: was very active, holding multiple marches in little towns all 228 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:17,920 Speaker 1: over the state every year, and nobody wanted it. Nobody's 229 00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:22,840 Speaker 1: excited to see the clan. In January of nineteen ninety one, 230 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:26,320 Speaker 1: they marched in Westchester, Pennsylvania to protest Martin Luther King 231 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:30,640 Speaker 1: Junior Day in September of nineteen ninety one, Barry held 232 00:14:30,640 --> 00:14:35,000 Speaker 1: a march in his own hometown of Carmichaels, Pennsylvania. The 233 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:37,560 Speaker 1: town fought tooth and nailed to prevent it, but he 234 00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:39,760 Speaker 1: was determined to put on a show and even tried 235 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:42,080 Speaker 1: to rope the ACLU into forcing the town to give 236 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:46,520 Speaker 1: him a permit. Ultimately, the tiny town resigned themselves to 237 00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:49,400 Speaker 1: this clan invasion, and they didn't make Berry take them 238 00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:53,200 Speaker 1: to court. The town closed down every shop and restaurant 239 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:55,880 Speaker 1: that day out of protest, and residents lined the streets 240 00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:58,240 Speaker 1: to watch a few dozen men walk about half a 241 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:01,640 Speaker 1: mile with Barry leading them a chance of what do 242 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:10,200 Speaker 1: we want white power? When do we want it now? Scoofy. 243 00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:12,560 Speaker 1: The Sener Daily Times ran a story the next day 244 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:17,080 Speaker 1: with the headline forty Clan members stage march in depressed town. 245 00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:22,760 Speaker 1: Even after reading the article, it's not actually clear whether 246 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:27,720 Speaker 1: the paper meant the town was depressed like economically. It 247 00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:31,000 Speaker 1: kind of just sounds like the town was just depressed 248 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,720 Speaker 1: at having to look at the clan. Every resident quoted 249 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:39,080 Speaker 1: in the paper sounded very unimpressed. When man told the paper, 250 00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:43,520 Speaker 1: I think they are a joke, and added Hitler tried 251 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:47,800 Speaker 1: this once and it didn't work, did it. Barry told 252 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: the paper that his marches weren't a racial thing, but 253 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,560 Speaker 1: that it was about bringing white people together to fight 254 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:57,360 Speaker 1: for their civil rights and against what he called the 255 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:01,960 Speaker 1: deterioration of our race. He just wanted to raise awareness 256 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:05,080 Speaker 1: about important issues, like how the banking system is controlled 257 00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:08,040 Speaker 1: by a Jewish conspiracy, and how the government is giving 258 00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:11,920 Speaker 1: away white men's rights to black people and Asians. I 259 00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:15,880 Speaker 1: don't know what that means, giving them away, like there's 260 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:19,560 Speaker 1: only a set number of them. Two months later, in 261 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:23,360 Speaker 1: November of nineteen ninety one, Very Black was elected to 262 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:29,000 Speaker 1: the office of constable in Johnstown, Pennsylvania's twenty first ward. 263 00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:32,160 Speaker 1: The office of constable is kind of a holdover from 264 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:36,360 Speaker 1: the olden days. It's kind of a cop, but not really. 265 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:40,840 Speaker 1: Their function varies from state to state, with powers ranging 266 00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:46,120 Speaker 1: from largely ceremonial to full policing authority. In Rhode Island, 267 00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:50,160 Speaker 1: constables aren't allowed to carry guns. In Vermont, one of 268 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:53,880 Speaker 1: the main roles of the constable is the destruction of 269 00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:58,760 Speaker 1: dangerous dogs. So yes, there are guys in Vermont running 270 00:16:58,760 --> 00:17:03,000 Speaker 1: for the office of dog murderer and in Pennsylvania. The 271 00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:05,679 Speaker 1: office has undergone some reform in the last few decades, 272 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:09,120 Speaker 1: but in the nineties the constable's duties were mainly prisoner 273 00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:14,080 Speaker 1: transportation and process service. But it's an elected office, and 274 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:16,359 Speaker 1: the office he won was for constable in a single 275 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:18,639 Speaker 1: ward of a borough of a county, and he was 276 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:22,119 Speaker 1: able to secure a victory without even really running. He 277 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:24,840 Speaker 1: won with just a few dozen write in votes because 278 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:29,800 Speaker 1: no one was running. I looked up some recent voter 279 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:34,119 Speaker 1: turnout stats for Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and Johnstown's twenty first 280 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:37,359 Speaker 1: ward had four hundred and four registered voters in twenty 281 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:40,000 Speaker 1: twenty three, and only one hundred and seven of them 282 00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,280 Speaker 1: voted in the November twenty twenty three election. So it's 283 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:45,960 Speaker 1: not hard to imagine someone mounting a successful write in 284 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:50,639 Speaker 1: campaign by buying a few rounds at the bar. But 285 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:53,600 Speaker 1: it wasn't meant to be. There's nothing I can find 286 00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:56,680 Speaker 1: in any local news from that time that indicates there 287 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:01,040 Speaker 1: was any kind of specific issue. Constable of the twenty 288 00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:03,400 Speaker 1: first ward of the Borough of a County probably doesn't 289 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:07,000 Speaker 1: have enough to do to really do much damage, But 290 00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:09,640 Speaker 1: a few months in to Barry's six year term as Constable. 291 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:15,040 Speaker 1: Cambria County District Attorney Timothy Creeney noticed that they had 292 00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:19,240 Speaker 1: a clansman serving papers for the court. How much he 293 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:21,960 Speaker 1: could really do about that, though it's not against the 294 00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:25,600 Speaker 1: rules to be in the clan, but Barry did have 295 00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:29,119 Speaker 1: a pretty long rap sheet. He'd been arrested for burglary, 296 00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:32,560 Speaker 1: he'd escaped from jail twice, and he had a conviction 297 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:37,080 Speaker 1: for illegal possession of a firearm. So Creaney filed a 298 00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:39,719 Speaker 1: petition to have Barry removed from office on the grounds 299 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:42,840 Speaker 1: that Pennsylvania doesn't allow people convicted of what are called 300 00:18:43,359 --> 00:18:48,919 Speaker 1: infamous crimes to hold positions of public trust. The judge agreed, 301 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,439 Speaker 1: and Barry was ordered by the court to cease and 302 00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:55,119 Speaker 1: desist his duties of constable in April of nineteen ninety two, 303 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:59,439 Speaker 1: just a few months after taking office. When he filed 304 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,120 Speaker 1: his appeal a month later, he walked the papers into 305 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:05,960 Speaker 1: the courthouse himself, dressed in a white robe, a pointy 306 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:10,200 Speaker 1: white cap, a green cape, and the kind of sunglasses 307 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:13,720 Speaker 1: my grandmother wore when I was a kid. A dozen 308 00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:16,600 Speaker 1: robed klansmen waited for him outside the courthouse, and he 309 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:19,080 Speaker 1: entered the court room with his personal bodyguard, a man 310 00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:22,919 Speaker 1: in fatigues, and a black beret. He was no longer 311 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:26,440 Speaker 1: just a legal or a Grand Titan. Barry was calling 312 00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:31,800 Speaker 1: himself the Grand Dragon. Now. Over the next few months, 313 00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,400 Speaker 1: Barry staged several protests of what he called this violation 314 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:38,000 Speaker 1: of his civil rights, and he appealed it all the 315 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,120 Speaker 1: way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In October of nineteen 316 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,280 Speaker 1: ninety four. That court upheld the decision. They agreed that 317 00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:48,600 Speaker 1: his criminal history made him ineligible for the office of constable. 318 00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:52,560 Speaker 1: That same month, several local papers quoted Barry on his 319 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,040 Speaker 1: plans to hold a clan rally in opposition to a 320 00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:59,119 Speaker 1: Halloween parade. He didn't give the quotes to the paper himself, 321 00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:04,120 Speaker 1: but they were his words and in his voice. See, 322 00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:08,160 Speaker 1: in the pre internet days, you couldn't have a website, right, 323 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:10,919 Speaker 1: so groups like the Klan would distribute flyers with a 324 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:14,480 Speaker 1: phone number on them, and nobody answers that phone when 325 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,280 Speaker 1: you call, but you get a pre recorded message with 326 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:22,000 Speaker 1: information about becoming a member, upcoming events, announcements, or just 327 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,840 Speaker 1: racist propaganda. And the Dial of Clan hotline that month 328 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,760 Speaker 1: offered a recorded statement from Barry Black stating that for 329 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:31,880 Speaker 1: security reasons. The time and exact location will be announced 330 00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:36,520 Speaker 1: with twelve hours notice, saying we have gone to modern technology, 331 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:40,520 Speaker 1: we use fax machines, etc. But that there would be 332 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:43,680 Speaker 1: an event that month in protest of a York Pennsylvania 333 00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:48,360 Speaker 1: area Halloween celebration because as a Christian organization, the Klan 334 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:53,959 Speaker 1: felt that Halloween was Satanic. Just imagine for a second 335 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:57,440 Speaker 1: it's nineteen ninety four and you get a fax from 336 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,439 Speaker 1: your local clig Rap that the Nighthawks or needed at 337 00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:04,640 Speaker 1: the satanic Halloween parade to enforce white Christian morals. I mean, 338 00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:10,639 Speaker 1: it's baffling, baffling. Klig Grap is the title for the 339 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:15,520 Speaker 1: clan secretary, and the Nighthawks are the security cards. So 340 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:20,080 Speaker 1: I guess the klik Grap is going to fax the Nighthawks. 341 00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:23,199 Speaker 1: A few days later, after the local paper ran a 342 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:26,879 Speaker 1: story about a planned counter demonstration, Barry told the paper 343 00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:30,240 Speaker 1: that he had no such plans and he never said 344 00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,119 Speaker 1: anything like that. He was not planning to protest the 345 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,480 Speaker 1: Halloween parade. He said that was just a rumor started 346 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,959 Speaker 1: by fellow clansman Roy Frankhauser, the leader of a splinter 347 00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:43,560 Speaker 1: group called the White Unity Party. Barry explained to the 348 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,800 Speaker 1: reporter that if Frankhauser wanted the White Unity Party to 349 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:49,920 Speaker 1: be allowed to join Barry's new clan organization, the Keystone 350 00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:52,760 Speaker 1: Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, then Frankhauser would need 351 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,480 Speaker 1: to accept that he didn't have Barry's permission to be 352 00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:59,160 Speaker 1: doing things like holding a press conference about Halloween parades 353 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:04,479 Speaker 1: and Roy Frankhauser is, I think, another candidate for his 354 00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:09,080 Speaker 1: own episode. He'd been acquitted earlier that year for stabbing 355 00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:11,200 Speaker 1: a man with a pocket knife at a clan conference, 356 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,280 Speaker 1: and at one point claimed to be a government informant, 357 00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,679 Speaker 1: although agents from the FBI and the ATF denied that 358 00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:21,320 Speaker 1: on various occasions, sometimes under oath, but I'm not sold. 359 00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:24,919 Speaker 1: He was convicted of obstruction of justice while working for 360 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,640 Speaker 1: Lyndon LaRouche in the nineteen eighties, got convicted of obstruction 361 00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,120 Speaker 1: again in a case involving desecration of synagogues in Massachusetts 362 00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:35,800 Speaker 1: in the nineties, and in twenty twenty one, someone made 363 00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,800 Speaker 1: an uncited edit to his Wikipedia page claiming that his 364 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:44,680 Speaker 1: hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, celebrated his death by holding a parade. 365 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,199 Speaker 1: I'll have to dig around on that. I hope it's true, 366 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,200 Speaker 1: but I have a feeling it's not. But in the 367 00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:55,240 Speaker 1: nineties Roy Frank Kauser was beefing with Barry And it's 368 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,879 Speaker 1: hard to say with any kind of certainty, but I 369 00:22:57,920 --> 00:22:59,760 Speaker 1: wonder if it was frank Kauser who met with the 370 00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:03,960 Speaker 1: f in nineteen ninety four. Barry's FBI file has a 371 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,880 Speaker 1: few heavily redacted pages about an aspiring clan informant who 372 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,160 Speaker 1: reported that he was present at a clan meeting when 373 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,960 Speaker 1: Barry Black. Since the Klan had a plan to deal 374 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:18,000 Speaker 1: harshly with traitors, the informant told the FBI that Barry 375 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:22,399 Speaker 1: Black had automatic weapons in hand. Grades and to their credit, 376 00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,160 Speaker 1: the FBI seems to have taken the tip pretty seriously, 377 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:27,639 Speaker 1: and in the summer of nineteen ninety four, they opened 378 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:32,320 Speaker 1: a domestic terrorism investigation into Barry Black. After only a week, 379 00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:36,200 Speaker 1: though the Pittsburgh Field Office downgraded and then ultimately closed 380 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:41,760 Speaker 1: the investigation, citing the tipster's quote inability to factually corroborate 381 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:59,240 Speaker 1: any of his allegations to make them believable. So Barry 382 00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:01,720 Speaker 1: is keeping pretty busy through the nineties with his new 383 00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,520 Speaker 1: clan group. He's got barades to lead and picnics to 384 00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,840 Speaker 1: attend and he's holding regular cross burnings, and by the 385 00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,840 Speaker 1: late nineties, these cross burnings are happening across the street 386 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,639 Speaker 1: from the Casanova Lounge, which was Somerset County, Pennsylvania's only 387 00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:21,399 Speaker 1: gay bar. In its brief four years in operation, the 388 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,040 Speaker 1: bar was the site of relentless protests from neighbors, a 389 00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:29,720 Speaker 1: self proclaimed Anabaptist bishop and the clan, as well as 390 00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:35,439 Speaker 1: a target for shotgun blasts and Molotov cocktails. Patricia and 391 00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,760 Speaker 1: Merrick Kramer, a straight couple in their fifties with grown children, 392 00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,960 Speaker 1: bought an old tavern on Route nine eighty five in 393 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,439 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. They ran at as a restaurant for 394 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,280 Speaker 1: two years before deciding in January of nineteen ninety seven 395 00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:52,480 Speaker 1: to start catering to gay clientele. It was the only 396 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:59,720 Speaker 1: such establishment for Miles and Miles. Patricia Pat to her friends, 397 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,280 Speaker 1: and I'd like to be Pat's friend said. They had 398 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,680 Speaker 1: customers drive in from as far as Maryland and West 399 00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,960 Speaker 1: Virginia for their tea dances, a kind of gay singles 400 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,280 Speaker 1: event whose name is a legacy of an era when 401 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:15,920 Speaker 1: it was illegal to sell alcohol to known homosexuals. In 402 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,320 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, Pat Kragmer told a reporter from The 403 00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,800 Speaker 1: Washington Blade, we do nothing improper here. We have dancing, 404 00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,960 Speaker 1: We served dinner from four to six p m. I 405 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,320 Speaker 1: do all the cooking. The DC based LGBT newspaper had 406 00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:32,560 Speaker 1: reached out to the Kramers after the first time a 407 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,840 Speaker 1: shotgun was fired through the front door, injuring three patrons, 408 00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,280 Speaker 1: and that's when street preacher Ron McCrae started showing up. 409 00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,800 Speaker 1: If you're old enough to have been politically aware in 410 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,360 Speaker 1: the early Obama years, this may not be the first 411 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,720 Speaker 1: time you've heard of Ron McCray. In two thousand and eight, 412 00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,960 Speaker 1: and now disbarred attorney named Philip Burg filed a lawsuit 413 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,000 Speaker 1: alleging that Barack Obama could not legally become the president 414 00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:01,240 Speaker 1: because he had been born in Kenya. A judge threw 415 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,560 Speaker 1: it out, calling it frivolous and not worthy of discussion, 416 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,679 Speaker 1: which it was, but that's never stopped a conspiracy theorist. 417 00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:12,960 Speaker 1: In December of two thousand and eight, Berg filed a 418 00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,040 Speaker 1: motion for an emergency injunction to stop the certification of 419 00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,520 Speaker 1: the election. In his ninety six page filing, Ron McCrae's 420 00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:26,040 Speaker 1: name appears over one hundred times so if you have 421 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:30,240 Speaker 1: any familiarity at all with the birthrism conspiracy, you've probably 422 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:35,160 Speaker 1: seen some vaguely sourced false claim that Obama's Kenyan grandmother, 423 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,800 Speaker 1: a woman named Sarah, who was his father's stepmother, was 424 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,480 Speaker 1: there in the room when he was born in Mombasa. 425 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,840 Speaker 1: It's not true. To be clear, Barack Obama was not 426 00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,680 Speaker 1: born in Mombasa, but the claim originated from a selectively 427 00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,439 Speaker 1: edited recording of a phone call Ron McCrae had with 428 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,240 Speaker 1: her via a translator in October two thousand and eight, 429 00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:02,159 Speaker 1: and McCrae was an enthusiastic participant in this conspiracy, providing 430 00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,160 Speaker 1: a sworn affidavit about the phone call for Berg's lawsuit. 431 00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:10,920 Speaker 1: The Supreme Court denied Berg's petition without comment, but mccray's 432 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,399 Speaker 1: hoax was now part of this official record, and conspiracy 433 00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,359 Speaker 1: theorists can easily brush off silly complications, like the fact 434 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,760 Speaker 1: that the lawsuit was dismissed as being utterly without merit. 435 00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:27,800 Speaker 1: Once a lie is born, it can become unkillable. The 436 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,840 Speaker 1: White House plumber himself, G. Gordon Liddy, repeated that same 437 00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,240 Speaker 1: lie a year later on an episode of Hardball with 438 00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:37,040 Speaker 1: Chris Matthews. Conveniently blurring the facts by claiming that the 439 00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:42,000 Speaker 1: sworn statement was from Sarah Obama herself rather than from McCrae, 440 00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:47,000 Speaker 1: who was merely repeating what he claimed she said to him. 441 00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:51,960 Speaker 2: The preponderance of the evidence is as follows. You've got 442 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,560 Speaker 2: a deposition, which is a sworn statement from the step 443 00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:00,960 Speaker 2: grandmother who says I was present and saw him born 444 00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:03,160 Speaker 2: in Mombasa, CanYa. 445 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,960 Speaker 1: Before he gave birth to one of Birthaism's most stubborn lies. 446 00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,199 Speaker 1: Ronnie Marcus McCrae grew up in Texas and claims to 447 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,800 Speaker 1: have been a police officer before turning to street preaching 448 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,320 Speaker 1: in his thirties, but I can't find any particular evidence 449 00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,359 Speaker 1: beyond his own claims that he was ever a cop. 450 00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,240 Speaker 1: By the late nineteen eighties, he was in western Pennsylvania 451 00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,600 Speaker 1: preaching the Word of God to unwilling congregants on street corners. 452 00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,600 Speaker 1: He was arrested a handful of times for violating noise 453 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,119 Speaker 1: ordinances or for disorderly conduct, and when he sued the 454 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,680 Speaker 1: authorities in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, nineteen ninety one for violating his rights, 455 00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,760 Speaker 1: they paid him seventy five hundred dollars to settle and 456 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,479 Speaker 1: that seems to have been the origin of McCrae's street 457 00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,320 Speaker 1: preacher's fellowship. It was a fairly litigious collective of amateur 458 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,760 Speaker 1: street preachers who would screen Bible verses on street corners 459 00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,560 Speaker 1: until the police would intervene, and then they would sue. 460 00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,400 Speaker 1: And that seems like what he was trying trying to 461 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:04,120 Speaker 1: do to Patricia Kramer and her customers outside Casanova almost 462 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:10,640 Speaker 1: every weekend for four years. Ron McCray was the loudest 463 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,480 Speaker 1: and most persistent opponent to the gay bar, but he 464 00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:17,600 Speaker 1: was far from the only one. Don and Lisa Penrod 465 00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,360 Speaker 1: lived less than a mile away on a plot of 466 00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,360 Speaker 1: land they'd inherited from Don's family. At a town meeting 467 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,120 Speaker 1: shortly after the bar opened, the Penrods were among residents 468 00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,719 Speaker 1: complaining about lewd and filthy literature found in the neighborhood. 469 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,440 Speaker 1: Pat Kramer tried to explain that no, those are flyers 470 00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:40,360 Speaker 1: advertising a glowstick party, saying it's nothing provocative. We don't 471 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,719 Speaker 1: run a dirty bar. After someone fired a shotgun through 472 00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:46,680 Speaker 1: the door of the crowded bar one night in March 473 00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,160 Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety seven, Don Penrod told the local paper 474 00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,640 Speaker 1: that actually he'd forgotten to mention this before, But a 475 00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,520 Speaker 1: few days before that happened. Actually, something bad happened to 476 00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:01,840 Speaker 1: him too. Someone had spray painted gay haters you will 477 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:07,080 Speaker 1: all Die Love pat on his garage. The paper doesn't 478 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,960 Speaker 1: include a photo of this vandalism, or even mention any 479 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,400 Speaker 1: claim that a photo might exist. In separate town meetings 480 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,920 Speaker 1: that spring, Don Penrod claimed that he found hardcore gay 481 00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,360 Speaker 1: pornography on his front lawn, and his wife, Lisa Penrod, 482 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,160 Speaker 1: claimed that their child found an abandoned sex toy while 483 00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,640 Speaker 1: playing outside. In both instances, the Penrods demand to know 484 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,480 Speaker 1: how they're supposed to explain this perversion to a child. 485 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:37,240 Speaker 1: I can find no evidence of anyone, aside from the 486 00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,480 Speaker 1: Penrods themselves, who ever made any claim to have seen 487 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:45,000 Speaker 1: either of these things. In April, the Penrods and their neighbors, 488 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,400 Speaker 1: who were disgusted at the idea of even having to 489 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,800 Speaker 1: drive on a road that shared a name with a 490 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,200 Speaker 1: den of sin, successfully petitioned to have the town rename 491 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:58,880 Speaker 1: Cosunova Road to Hemlock Road. In May of nineteen ninety seven, 492 00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:06,320 Speaker 1: the Penrod invited the clan over Barry Black's Keystone Knights 493 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,040 Speaker 1: used the Penrod's farm as a staging area to park 494 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,920 Speaker 1: down their robes and then march down the street to 495 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:16,680 Speaker 1: the bar. They spent an afternoon hollering at the empty establishment, 496 00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,160 Speaker 1: it's a bar, nobody's there in the middle of the afternoon, 497 00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,560 Speaker 1: and then they retired to the Penronz property for a 498 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,280 Speaker 1: cross burning. Patrons at the bar would have been able 499 00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,360 Speaker 1: to see the glow from the flames when they pulled 500 00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,960 Speaker 1: into the parking lot that Saturday night. Ron McCrae kept 501 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,160 Speaker 1: up his antics outside Casanova, but Barry had bigger things 502 00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,400 Speaker 1: going on. Towards the end of nineteen ninety seven, he 503 00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:44,400 Speaker 1: got elected constable again, just as he had in nineteen 504 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,320 Speaker 1: ninety one. He managed to secure a victory in Johnstown's 505 00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,720 Speaker 1: twenty first ward on write in votes alone. This time 506 00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:57,800 Speaker 1: though he got one. He got one vote. Nobody was running, 507 00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:02,280 Speaker 1: and I guess nobody else vote, and so he won 508 00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,960 Speaker 1: with one. And I can't find any reporting on whether 509 00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,880 Speaker 1: or not he was ever asked outright if that one 510 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,760 Speaker 1: vote was his own, But I think it's a safe bet. 511 00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,840 Speaker 1: I have to wonder if it was a joke. I mean, 512 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,880 Speaker 1: was he having a private joke with himself or was 513 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,320 Speaker 1: a friend joking about how he had done it last time. 514 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,280 Speaker 1: Did he really think it would work a second time? 515 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,840 Speaker 1: And if he did do this himself, why didn't he 516 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,960 Speaker 1: ask anyone else to do it with him? Was he 517 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,480 Speaker 1: surprised when he found out he was the constable again? 518 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:41,160 Speaker 1: There's really no way to know. So he's back in 519 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,720 Speaker 1: the saddle as constable. And it seems like nobody noticed. 520 00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,120 Speaker 1: It must not be a very demanding job if no 521 00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,520 Speaker 1: one noticed that there were no candidates at all for 522 00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,120 Speaker 1: the office, and no one said a word when a 523 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,960 Speaker 1: guy who'd been ordered by the state Supreme Court to 524 00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:01,040 Speaker 1: vacate the position just unilaterally voted himself back in. But 525 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:06,320 Speaker 1: there it was. And in nineteen ninety eight, Casanova is 526 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,880 Speaker 1: entering its second year as Somerset County's only gay bar, 527 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:15,040 Speaker 1: and things are getting worse. There was another crossburning across 528 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,440 Speaker 1: the street. They got bomb threats. Ron McCrae vowed to 529 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,040 Speaker 1: be out there every Friday and Saturday night until the 530 00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,600 Speaker 1: bar was forced to shut down. The Kramers were getting 531 00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,000 Speaker 1: death threats in the mail. The front windows were smashed 532 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:33,040 Speaker 1: out with huge rocks thrown from a passing car, but 533 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,240 Speaker 1: the Cramers weren't going to lie down and take it. 534 00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,640 Speaker 1: Speaking later to Professor Todd Hibel for his essay blame 535 00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,880 Speaker 1: it on the Casanova, good Scenery and sodomy in rural 536 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,760 Speaker 1: southwestern Pennsylvania, pat said, McCray made a pledge to these 537 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:49,880 Speaker 1: neighbors that he would have us closed in a week. 538 00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,320 Speaker 1: Well that never happened. Never happened because McCrae didn't know 539 00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:59,360 Speaker 1: who I was, and the Cramers weren't alone. Some neighbors 540 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,400 Speaker 1: were on their side, even forming a group called Network 541 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,080 Speaker 1: of Neighbors United against Hate Crimes. And I know you're 542 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,200 Speaker 1: probably trying to spell that out in your mind to 543 00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,560 Speaker 1: see if that makes some kind of initialism. It doesn't. 544 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:17,279 Speaker 1: It's n NUA HC. It doesn't spell anything. And while 545 00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,760 Speaker 1: the local gay community in Somerset County was pretty small, 546 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,759 Speaker 1: the gay community in cities like Pittsburgh and DC were 547 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,000 Speaker 1: rooting for them. A group of gay men from Pittsburgh 548 00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,080 Speaker 1: rented a bus to come out to Somerset County for 549 00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,120 Speaker 1: a theme night. They called it burn in Hell Night, 550 00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,960 Speaker 1: poking fun at the screaming preacher in the parking lot 551 00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:35,800 Speaker 1: who was always telling them that's where they were heading. 552 00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,400 Speaker 1: In March of nineteen ninety eight, a DC based group 553 00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,680 Speaker 1: called the Lesbian Avengers drove three hours to show their 554 00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:48,439 Speaker 1: support for Casanova. Washington City Paper reporter Amanda Ripley joined 555 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:53,200 Speaker 1: them for the trip. The Avengers danced, drank, mingled, and 556 00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:57,880 Speaker 1: performed some comedic skits for patrons at the bar. Pat Kramer, 557 00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,680 Speaker 1: that straight married woman in her fifties ran the bar, 558 00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,440 Speaker 1: said I thought that the girls were just wonderful. We 559 00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:09,160 Speaker 1: loved them, and added even some heterosexuals offered them to 560 00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,760 Speaker 1: stay in their homes in the future. And Pat beamed 561 00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,879 Speaker 1: as she told these girls from out of town that 562 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,959 Speaker 1: a lot of her bar's patrons just call her mother. 563 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:24,359 Speaker 1: I've always wanted a large family, she explained. Pat's own 564 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,400 Speaker 1: daughter had died a few years earlier after contracting HIV 565 00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,279 Speaker 1: from a blood transfusion, and now here she is with 566 00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:37,000 Speaker 1: this gay bar full of chosen family. I wonder it 567 00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,319 Speaker 1: doesn't say, but I wonder if it was at her 568 00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,440 Speaker 1: daughter's bedside that she first came to see the importance 569 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,480 Speaker 1: of queer community. Her daughter had been infected by a 570 00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,080 Speaker 1: blood transfusion, but I have to imagine Pat Kramer met 571 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,520 Speaker 1: patients and caregivers and grieving partners there on the Aids ward, 572 00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,239 Speaker 1: and she got a much more intimate look at who 573 00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:01,600 Speaker 1: gay people really were than those straight suburban women were 574 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,840 Speaker 1: getting in nineteen ninety. Before they left DC, on the 575 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,960 Speaker 1: day of their visit to Somerset County, the Lesbian Avengers 576 00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,640 Speaker 1: all agreed on the rules of engagement. They were headed 577 00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:17,000 Speaker 1: up there to support Casanova, and things are different out 578 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,920 Speaker 1: in the country. They didn't want to make things worse 579 00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,320 Speaker 1: for the gay people who lived there, and they really 580 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,439 Speaker 1: didn't want to end up in the county jail. So 581 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,879 Speaker 1: the rules were no cussing, no taking off your top. 582 00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:33,280 Speaker 1: On the drive up, their lawyer, Kathy reminded them again 583 00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:38,160 Speaker 1: to quote resist the urge to strip down an arm wrestle. 584 00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:43,080 Speaker 1: This isn't DC. So they were on their best behavior 585 00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,120 Speaker 1: when they got there. They ignored Ron McCrae and the 586 00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,919 Speaker 1: other protesters when they swarmed the women in the parking lot, 587 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:52,359 Speaker 1: calling them trash and wicked and failures as women, and 588 00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,080 Speaker 1: telling them they would never find husbands and that they 589 00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:59,040 Speaker 1: would burn in hell. I'm not sure one of those 590 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:03,080 Speaker 1: things really bothered. But they just walked into the bar 591 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,160 Speaker 1: and they had a great time. Ripley's article describes mccray's 592 00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,880 Speaker 1: teenage sons standing silently in the parking lot next to 593 00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:17,400 Speaker 1: his father, holding a sign that read Casanova customers, child molesters, strippers, whores, 594 00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:22,480 Speaker 1: cross dressers, prostitutes, sodomites, five drunkards, and a handful of wackos. 595 00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,560 Speaker 1: I'm not sure which of mccray's sons that would have been, 596 00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,120 Speaker 1: but I don't think it was the one who would 597 00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,120 Speaker 1: later get arrested for inappropriate sexual contact with a lot 598 00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:37,359 Speaker 1: of underage girls. And when the Avengers walked out into 599 00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:40,480 Speaker 1: the parking lot at little after one am, McCray was 600 00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:44,640 Speaker 1: still there, just as they did every weekend. The protesters 601 00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,600 Speaker 1: were there in the parking lot, and they surrounded patrons 602 00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:51,080 Speaker 1: trying to leave the bar. They screamed and threatened and 603 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,560 Speaker 1: blocked them from getting to their van. One protester got 604 00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,880 Speaker 1: right in the face of Beth Armitage, a member of 605 00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,960 Speaker 1: the Lesbian Avengers, and said, you never know, this night 606 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,640 Speaker 1: might be her last. But they were prepared for this. 607 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:09,000 Speaker 1: The Lesbian Avengers were no strangers to confrontation. In fact, 608 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,799 Speaker 1: they reveled in it. They were only on their best 609 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,279 Speaker 1: behavior that night for everyone else's sake. They kept their 610 00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,759 Speaker 1: heads down and refused to engage on their way into 611 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:21,080 Speaker 1: the bar earlier that evening, But now they couldn't resist. 612 00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,239 Speaker 1: They promised they weren't going to make a scene, they 613 00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,240 Speaker 1: weren't going to engage, But it was cold and late, 614 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,520 Speaker 1: and these men screaming slurs at them were keeping them 615 00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,759 Speaker 1: from the warmth of their van. So they formed a 616 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:56,480 Speaker 1: semicircle and began to chant the Lesbian Avengers are fire eaters. 617 00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:01,920 Speaker 1: In September of nineteen ninety two, Hattie May Cohens, a 618 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,319 Speaker 1: black lesbian, and her roommate Brian Mock, a white gay 619 00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:09,239 Speaker 1: man with an intellectual disability, were burned alive in their 620 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,040 Speaker 1: home in Oregon after Neo Nazi's skinheads through Molotov cocktails 621 00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,120 Speaker 1: through the windows of her apartment. A month later, at 622 00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:19,840 Speaker 1: a vigil for Cohens and Mock in New York, the 623 00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,760 Speaker 1: Lesbian Avengers ate fire for the first time. The fire 624 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:28,960 Speaker 1: will not consume us. We take it and make it 625 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,680 Speaker 1: our own. Their lawyer had pleaded with him on the 626 00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:36,560 Speaker 1: drive up not to do this tonight. Not here they 627 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,799 Speaker 1: could get charged with public disturbance, and this wasn't a 628 00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:43,399 Speaker 1: friendly place to have to fight a charge. But here 629 00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:47,120 Speaker 1: they were in the snow being told that they would burn, 630 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,640 Speaker 1: so Ron McCrae got to see those lesbians eat the fire. 631 00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:55,680 Speaker 1: He was always threatening people with the Ku Klux claned 632 00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,080 Speaker 1: with their burning crosses, and the skinheads with their Molotov cocktails, 633 00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,560 Speaker 1: and the street preach with their threats of the fires 634 00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:06,439 Speaker 1: of hell. They're always surprised when a bitch burns back. 635 00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,360 Speaker 1: Barry's clan group had staged protests directly outside Casanova in 636 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,280 Speaker 1: May of nineteen ninety seven, but in July of nineteen 637 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,240 Speaker 1: ninety eight, he assured the Kramers that the clan's presence 638 00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,439 Speaker 1: in the area had nothing to do with the bar, 639 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,640 Speaker 1: and nothing to do with the fact that the bar's owner, 640 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,560 Speaker 1: Pat Kramer, had just returned from a trip to Washington, 641 00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:40,960 Speaker 1: d c. Where she had testified in front of the 642 00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:45,319 Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing on hate crimes legislation. No, 643 00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,360 Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with that. The clan was 644 00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,240 Speaker 1: just in the neighborhood for an entirely unrelated cross burning. 645 00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:54,960 Speaker 1: Don and Lisa Penrod, that couple who had been active 646 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,200 Speaker 1: in the protest against the bar's presence in the town, 647 00:40:57,840 --> 00:40:59,719 Speaker 1: owned a little bit of land across the street and 648 00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:02,280 Speaker 1: they invited the Klan to have a picnic on their property. 649 00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,640 Speaker 1: Their farm had been the site of previous clan rallies 650 00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,200 Speaker 1: and cross burnings, and on this July afternoon, they'd be 651 00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:14,799 Speaker 1: hosting the clan's White Pride Day picnic. The picnic did 652 00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,040 Speaker 1: not go well. I'll go ahead and spoil it. One 653 00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:23,960 Speaker 1: local paper ran the headline KKK picnic host arrested. The 654 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,440 Speaker 1: two day affair was announced two weeks ahead of the event. 655 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,680 Speaker 1: Local residents who opposed the Klan held their own competing picnic, 656 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:34,120 Speaker 1: calling it the Unity Picnic at the Laurel Trinity Lutheran 657 00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,920 Speaker 1: Church a few miles away. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported 658 00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,879 Speaker 1: that Ron McCray himself stopped by the Unity picnic. He'd 659 00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:44,000 Speaker 1: sent the church a letter denouncing their pastor of the 660 00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,279 Speaker 1: week before and accusing members of the congregation of a 661 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:51,600 Speaker 1: variety of sexual sins. But even Ron McCrae hated the clan. 662 00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:57,360 Speaker 1: I'm not totally sure why he hated the clan, to 663 00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,200 Speaker 1: be honest. I mean, his own religious beliefs include the 664 00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,239 Speaker 1: idea that sex outside your own race is within the 665 00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,480 Speaker 1: Biblical definition of the sin of fornication, so it's not 666 00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:13,320 Speaker 1: like he's not racist, but nevertheless, he apparently enjoyed the picnic. 667 00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,920 Speaker 1: About one hundred and fifty people attended, and the local 668 00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:20,760 Speaker 1: paper reported that dinner was served potluck style and speeches 669 00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,719 Speaker 1: were given by various state and local civil rights organizations. 670 00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,400 Speaker 1: Over at the clan picnic, the police were keeping an 671 00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:33,719 Speaker 1: eye on the Penrod farm, specifically on Barry Black. Barry 672 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,719 Speaker 1: would later explain to a reporter that the reason his 673 00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,960 Speaker 1: family friendly picnic was crawling with burly tattooed clansmen with 674 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,600 Speaker 1: pump action riot shotguns is that they were worried that 675 00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:49,760 Speaker 1: the people from the gay bar would come bother them 676 00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:53,160 Speaker 1: and just a little more clan vocabulary. Those security guards 677 00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,600 Speaker 1: are the Nighthawks. And while these armed guards were under 678 00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:00,680 Speaker 1: strict orders to prevent media or cameras of any kind 679 00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,799 Speaker 1: really from entering the property, Barry invited Dennis Roddy, a 680 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,120 Speaker 1: reporter from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, into the picnic for 681 00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:12,360 Speaker 1: a little tour, and Barry was just so happy to 682 00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,480 Speaker 1: show off his event to this reporter from the big city, 683 00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,200 Speaker 1: and he made sure to put it on the record 684 00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,000 Speaker 1: that there was absolutely no reason to worry about any 685 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,200 Speaker 1: lawlessness going on to the picnic. Not only did the 686 00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,560 Speaker 1: Klan count many cops from a variety of counties among 687 00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:32,440 Speaker 1: their membership, Barry himself was in law enforcement. Nobody seemed 688 00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,080 Speaker 1: to have noticed up until this point that Barry was 689 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,960 Speaker 1: the constable again. But here he is bragging about it 690 00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,239 Speaker 1: to a reporter, and that's going to bite him in 691 00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:45,200 Speaker 1: the ass. Later sometime that afternoon, just as it was 692 00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:47,160 Speaker 1: about time to start setting up the cross that they 693 00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:49,680 Speaker 1: were going to burn when the sun went down, the 694 00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:54,880 Speaker 1: Nighthawks saw something. State Police had made no secret of 695 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:56,759 Speaker 1: the fact that they were increasing their presence in the 696 00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,920 Speaker 1: area that day, just as a precaution. They didn't want 697 00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:03,200 Speaker 1: any chance of these competing picnics and countering one another. 698 00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,560 Speaker 1: But in addition to their visible presence in the area, 699 00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,439 Speaker 1: the state police had gotten permission from the Penrod's next 700 00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:13,960 Speaker 1: door neighbor to be on their property, and from that 701 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,799 Speaker 1: neighboring property, an undercover state trooper was perched in a 702 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:22,279 Speaker 1: tree with a telephoto lens. They were acting on a 703 00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,840 Speaker 1: tip that Barry was once again illegally in possession of 704 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,040 Speaker 1: a firearm, and they wanted to see if they could 705 00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,359 Speaker 1: catch a glimpse of him. Handling a gun. It doesn't 706 00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,000 Speaker 1: sound like they ever did catch Barry holding a gun, 707 00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,200 Speaker 1: but almost everyone else was armed to the absolute teeth, 708 00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:41,120 Speaker 1: so when the nighthawks caught a glimpse of a guy 709 00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,080 Speaker 1: hiding in the tree line at the edge of the property, 710 00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:48,960 Speaker 1: they bolted for him. State Trooper George Emmig would later 711 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:50,920 Speaker 1: testify that he was sitting up in that tree on 712 00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,600 Speaker 1: the neighbor's property when about ten picnic attendees rushed over 713 00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,480 Speaker 1: to the fence line. He identified himself to the armed 714 00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,000 Speaker 1: men as a state trooper, and he explained that he 715 00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,680 Speaker 1: had the neighbor's permission to be on their property. He 716 00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,280 Speaker 1: said it was at that point that Don Penrod pointed 717 00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:12,760 Speaker 1: the rifle at him and said, you're dead. State Police 718 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,680 Speaker 1: Sergeant George Bivins arrived on the scene almost immediately. He'd 719 00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,440 Speaker 1: seen the group moving towards Emig's position, and he testified 720 00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:22,839 Speaker 1: that he'd heard Emig trying to explain to the men 721 00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:27,640 Speaker 1: that he was a police officer, and then Bivins heard 722 00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,760 Speaker 1: Ronald Bendix, one of the nighthawks, reply that he didn't 723 00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:36,040 Speaker 1: care and they were going to kill him anyway. It 724 00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:38,120 Speaker 1: was at this point that Bivins drew his own weapon 725 00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:43,360 Speaker 1: and the klansmen scattered. And now now the state police 726 00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,160 Speaker 1: had a reason to enter the Penrod property before they 727 00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,239 Speaker 1: were keeping it at the fence line, but now they're 728 00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:54,359 Speaker 1: giving chase. Michael Abraham was arrested inside the picnic tent. 729 00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:59,760 Speaker 1: Ronald Bendis was found hiding under a blanket, and Adam 730 00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,920 Speaker 1: Woyre was also taken into custody, but it doesn't say 731 00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,880 Speaker 1: where he was hiding. Don Penrod was nowhere to be 732 00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:09,719 Speaker 1: found that afternoon, but he was arrested a week later 733 00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:14,200 Speaker 1: when the police searched his home. The police confiscated several shotguns, 734 00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:17,960 Speaker 1: a pistol, a ceremonial clan sword, a Tommy gun, and 735 00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:23,440 Speaker 1: a bulletproof vest. But the picnic wasn't canceled. Three members 736 00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:26,239 Speaker 1: had been carted off to jail, but the show must 737 00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,640 Speaker 1: go on, and that cross wasn't going to burn itself. 738 00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,040 Speaker 1: A few months later, Barry's lawyer was in court arguing 739 00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:37,520 Speaker 1: for the return of those seized items. I'm not quite 740 00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:41,160 Speaker 1: sure what the legal strategy is here, Like, I don't 741 00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,799 Speaker 1: know if you have legal standing as the guest at 742 00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,720 Speaker 1: a picnic to challenge the search and seizure of someone 743 00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,759 Speaker 1: else's property, and the sword was definitely Barry's, but he 744 00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:56,480 Speaker 1: absolutely was not claiming ownership of the submachine gun. But 745 00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,000 Speaker 1: the judge did order the police to return Barry's Sarah 746 00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:05,200 Speaker 1: Ammonial Clan sword, but they kept the guns. It took 747 00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,640 Speaker 1: a year to sort out, but in the end Don 748 00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:10,960 Speaker 1: Penrod got six months for terroristic threats, followed by two 749 00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,960 Speaker 1: years of supervision for the assault. Stephen Bedecks got fourteen 750 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:19,600 Speaker 1: months for the assault and terroristic threats, Michael Abraham got 751 00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,920 Speaker 1: nine months for simple assault, and Adam Moyer was acquitted 752 00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,839 Speaker 1: on all accounts. One article notes that Bedecks got more 753 00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:28,520 Speaker 1: time than the others because at the time of the 754 00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,840 Speaker 1: incident he was out on parole for a conviction in 755 00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,520 Speaker 1: a case related to his role in a cocaine trafficking 756 00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,200 Speaker 1: ring that would bring drugs down from New York City 757 00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:41,719 Speaker 1: and distribute them in the Lehigh Valley area. In twenty twelve, 758 00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:43,840 Speaker 1: he was the president of his local chapter of the 759 00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:48,480 Speaker 1: Pagan's Motorcycle Club when he was federally indicted for cocaine 760 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:53,880 Speaker 1: trafficking again. He spent five years in prison and died 761 00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:59,080 Speaker 1: shortly after his release, but back to Barry. After those 762 00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:03,160 Speaker 1: three Nighthawks were arrested, Don Penrod used his own property 763 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,840 Speaker 1: as collateral to bail out Abraham and Moyer. Bedex was 764 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,759 Speaker 1: held without bond due to the prole violation, and when 765 00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:13,520 Speaker 1: Penrod himself was arrested a few days after the picnic, 766 00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,920 Speaker 1: Barry walked into the jail with a ten thousand dollars 767 00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:22,319 Speaker 1: cashier's check in hand to bail him out. That same week, 768 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,520 Speaker 1: Barry filed a criminal and civil complaint against state police 769 00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:28,000 Speaker 1: Sergeant Bivens, the trooper who drew his gun on the 770 00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:31,600 Speaker 1: klansmen who were pointing their guns at another state trooper, 771 00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,200 Speaker 1: and the county prosecutor filed a petition to have Barry 772 00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:39,040 Speaker 1: removed from the office of constable. It's a new prosecutor now, 773 00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:41,160 Speaker 1: that district attorney from the first time around as a 774 00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:43,520 Speaker 1: judge at this point, but the game is the same. 775 00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:46,719 Speaker 1: Barry can't be the constable because he's been convicted of 776 00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:51,880 Speaker 1: too many crimes. Complaining about the police intrusion on his picnic, 777 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:55,759 Speaker 1: Barry told the local newspaper, the state police are like 778 00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,680 Speaker 1: the Gestapo. We are nice white people having a family picnic. 779 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,240 Speaker 1: Where's our first Amendment? Rights to our beliefs, and Barry's 780 00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,160 Speaker 1: relationship to the First Amendment is something we'll explore in 781 00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,319 Speaker 1: greater detail next week, because that's where I'm gonna leave 782 00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,560 Speaker 1: it today. We'll pick up next time with Barry's second 783 00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,480 Speaker 1: court battle to keep his job as Cambria County Constable, 784 00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:20,000 Speaker 1: and then follow him to Virginia where he'll light the 785 00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,640 Speaker 1: cross that takes him all the way to the Supreme Court. 786 00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:28,400 Speaker 1: Until then, I don't know, try to love your neighbors 787 00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,319 Speaker 1: like Pat Kramer did, and don't bring a Tommy gun 788 00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:56,040 Speaker 1: to a family picnic. Welcome back to the second half 789 00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:00,880 Speaker 1: of the story of Barry Black, the Pennsylvania clansman. Barry 790 00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,000 Speaker 1: Black's main claim to fame as being the black in 791 00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,600 Speaker 1: Commonwealth of Virginia v. Black, the two thousand and three 792 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:13,400 Speaker 1: Supreme Court case that found Virginia's crossburning statute unconstitutionally overbroad. 793 00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:15,600 Speaker 1: I set out to learn a little more about that 794 00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,040 Speaker 1: landmark decision and the life of the man who won it, 795 00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:21,680 Speaker 1: because it comes up often in some cases going on now, 796 00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:25,040 Speaker 1: the prosecutions of the torch bearing white supremacist who came 797 00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,560 Speaker 1: to Charlottesville in twenty seventeen, and I found a lot 798 00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:32,680 Speaker 1: more than I bargained for. I don't know what I expected, 799 00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:35,600 Speaker 1: but last week's story of a small town war and 800 00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,560 Speaker 1: a rural gay bar complete with side characters like a 801 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:41,880 Speaker 1: notorious federal informant who worked for Lynton LaRouche and a 802 00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,240 Speaker 1: street preacher who was a central figure in the Obama 803 00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:50,120 Speaker 1: Birtherism conspiracy, definitely surprised me. This week, though, we'll actually 804 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,440 Speaker 1: get to Barry's infamous cross burning and the Black acl 805 00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:58,640 Speaker 1: lawyer who fought for the clansmen's rights that victory. 806 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,480 Speaker 3: What worldwide? I said, case present, I said case law, 807 00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:07,120 Speaker 3: and we proved that the law does work. Yet I 808 00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,440 Speaker 3: can light across anywhere in the United States of America 809 00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:11,440 Speaker 3: that I want to light it. 810 00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:20,000 Speaker 1: Barry Black fought the law and he won. But a 811 00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,680 Speaker 1: new law was born from the ashes of the one 812 00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:44,000 Speaker 1: Barry burned. I'm Molly Conger, this is weird, little guys. 813 00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,600 Speaker 1: When we left off last week, Barry Black and his 814 00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,160 Speaker 1: Keystone Knights had gotten into a little hot water at 815 00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:55,200 Speaker 1: their white bride picnic. In July of nineteen ninety eight, 816 00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,440 Speaker 1: Barry held a clan picnic on a farm owned by 817 00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:02,040 Speaker 1: Don and Lisa Penrod in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when Berry 818 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,440 Speaker 1: held a clan rally at Kasanova Lounge, the county's only 819 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,640 Speaker 1: gay bar the year prior. The Penrod's farm was the 820 00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,239 Speaker 1: pre rally staging area and the site of the post 821 00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,280 Speaker 1: rally cross burning later that evening. They weren't just concerned 822 00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,840 Speaker 1: neighbors whose opposition to the gay bar made them unlikely 823 00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:21,840 Speaker 1: allies with the clan. They were members. Lisa Penrod in 824 00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:24,600 Speaker 1: fact commanded the women's Auxiliary Unit and served as the 825 00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,279 Speaker 1: Imperial Secretary of the Invisible Empire International Keystone Knights of 826 00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,799 Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan under Berry's leadership, and on July 827 00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:35,759 Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, Don and Lisa Penrod were 828 00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:37,880 Speaker 1: two of the ten clan members standing at the fence 829 00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:40,719 Speaker 1: line on the Penrod farm demanding answers from a man 830 00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,279 Speaker 1: in their neighbour's tree. That man turned out to be 831 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,839 Speaker 1: a state trooper, and Don Penrod was one of four 832 00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,480 Speaker 1: attendees at the clan picnic who was arrested for threatening 833 00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:54,279 Speaker 1: the trooper at gunpoint. Barry himself posted Don Penrod's ten 834 00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:59,240 Speaker 1: thousand dollars bond the week after the picnic. Cambria County 835 00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:02,560 Speaker 1: district attorney David Tulowitski, filed a petition with the court 836 00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,920 Speaker 1: to have Berry Black removed from the office of Constable, 837 00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,040 Speaker 1: an elected law enforcement position he'd won by a single 838 00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:12,080 Speaker 1: rite in vote the year prior. History was repeating itself. 839 00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:15,840 Speaker 1: Barry was elected constable of Johnstown's twenty first ward in 840 00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:18,520 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one and was removed from office just a 841 00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:21,480 Speaker 1: few months later when the county prosecutor filed a petition 842 00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:23,720 Speaker 1: to have him removed on the grounds that his criminal 843 00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:26,600 Speaker 1: record made him ineligible to hold a position of public trust. 844 00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,799 Speaker 1: A judge agreed. Barry appealed that decision and fought it 845 00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,759 Speaker 1: all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, holding clan 846 00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:37,319 Speaker 1: rallies at court houses and in small towns throughout the 847 00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:41,080 Speaker 1: year and a half long appeals process. The state's highest 848 00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,680 Speaker 1: court told Barry in nineteen ninety three that he wasn't 849 00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,040 Speaker 1: allowed to be the constable and nothing in the law 850 00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,759 Speaker 1: had changed in the five years since. But here he 851 00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:53,320 Speaker 1: was fighting the same fight all over again. This time around, 852 00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:55,440 Speaker 1: he argued that the petition to remove him from office 853 00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:59,279 Speaker 1: was retaliation, pure and simple. The county was punishing him 854 00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:01,520 Speaker 1: for his clan ratal and for the complaint he'd filed 855 00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:04,120 Speaker 1: against the state troopers who arrested his friends at the picnic. 856 00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:07,680 Speaker 1: In mid August of nineteen ninety eight, the issue of 857 00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,480 Speaker 1: whether the clansmen could continue operating as constable was with 858 00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,080 Speaker 1: the courts. There was no injunction preventing him from acting 859 00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,040 Speaker 1: as a law enforcement official, but the county had apparently 860 00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:19,839 Speaker 1: instructed officers of the court to use him to serve 861 00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:24,919 Speaker 1: Warrens as sparingly as possible. In the meantime, Barry's lawyer 862 00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:28,560 Speaker 1: shrugged this off, telling the local paper, I think he's 863 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:31,600 Speaker 1: pretty well preoccupied with his grand wizardry in the clan, 864 00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:38,120 Speaker 1: and that's true. He was keeping busy, And it was 865 00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:41,800 Speaker 1: in August nineteen ninety eight that Barry Black took a 866 00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:47,160 Speaker 1: road trip. This wasn't Barry's first out of state clan 867 00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:50,560 Speaker 1: field trip. Six people were arrested when the crowd got 868 00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,239 Speaker 1: out of control during Barry's opening prayers at a clan 869 00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:57,239 Speaker 1: rally in Millville, New Jersey, in nineteen ninety When Barry 870 00:54:57,280 --> 00:54:59,880 Speaker 1: had lined across burning in Maryland in nineteen ninety one, 871 00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,040 Speaker 1: the Washington Post printed the slurs that came out of 872 00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:07,279 Speaker 1: his mouth when clan leaders from six states converged in 873 00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,880 Speaker 1: Ohio in nineteen ninety five. Barry told the Cincinnati Inquirer 874 00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:14,239 Speaker 1: that it was like a family reunion and lamented that 875 00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:17,120 Speaker 1: no one ever gives the clan credit for all the 876 00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:21,359 Speaker 1: good things we do. When clansmen in South Carolina came 877 00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,200 Speaker 1: under federal investigation for burning down black churches, Barry was 878 00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:28,440 Speaker 1: there at a cross burning in Lexington in nineteen ninety six, 879 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:31,480 Speaker 1: pledging the support of the Keystone Nights in this legal 880 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:36,360 Speaker 1: battle to come. No, his lawyer was right. Barry was 881 00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:40,320 Speaker 1: very busy being the grand Wizard. He was always driving 882 00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:44,000 Speaker 1: off to Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, or just the other side 883 00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,080 Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania for some appearance at a clan event. This 884 00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,360 Speaker 1: trip to Virginia should have been like any of the others, 885 00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:56,320 Speaker 1: show up, make a scene, light across, upset the locals, 886 00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:02,320 Speaker 1: and head home again. But this time was different. The 887 00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:04,719 Speaker 1: Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan packed up their 888 00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:07,319 Speaker 1: white robes and their crossburning supplies and made the six 889 00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:12,160 Speaker 1: hour drive from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to Hillsville, Virginia, a small 890 00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:15,719 Speaker 1: town in Carroll County in Virginia's far southwest. Tip not 891 00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,360 Speaker 1: far from the North Carolina border. And here's Barry in 892 00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:21,720 Speaker 1: his own words, talking about the event in an interview 893 00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,880 Speaker 1: recorded in two thousand and five for Duke University School 894 00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:27,720 Speaker 1: of Law's Voices of American Law Project. 895 00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:33,480 Speaker 3: What I was doing down there was starting a new den, 896 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:36,720 Speaker 3: or starting a new clavern, giving the people the books 897 00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,239 Speaker 3: to read, telling the people what we expected them and 898 00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:46,600 Speaker 3: how we want them to become pillars in their community. 899 00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:49,440 Speaker 1: Pillars of the community, he says. And when he was 900 00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:51,759 Speaker 1: placed in the back of a deputy's patrol car that night, 901 00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:55,040 Speaker 1: he offered some insight into what he meant by that 902 00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:59,840 Speaker 1: to Carroll County Sheriff's Lieutenant Rick Clark. Here's Virginia's Solicitor 903 00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:03,560 Speaker 1: Roal William Hurd relaying that statement to the Supreme Court. 904 00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:09,719 Speaker 3: What we had in the case of Verry Black was 905 00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:11,719 Speaker 3: he heard. 906 00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:13,759 Speaker 4: That he's from Pennsylvania. 907 00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:17,040 Speaker 5: He heard that down in Carroll County, blacks and whites 908 00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:18,880 Speaker 5: were holding hands on the sidewalk. 909 00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:25,600 Speaker 1: Barry Black was arrested that night, handcuffed and taken away 910 00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:29,320 Speaker 1: while the cross was still burning, because regardless of why 911 00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:35,360 Speaker 1: he came, what he'd done was a felony here in Virginia. 912 00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,840 Speaker 1: The first half of this story opened with a twelve 913 00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:40,680 Speaker 1: foot cross set ablaze in a peanut field in Suffolk, 914 00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:45,760 Speaker 1: Virginia in nineteen forty eight. Local agricultural union workers denounced 915 00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,160 Speaker 1: it as an act of terrorism and demanded a response 916 00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:50,640 Speaker 1: from state government officials. After being brushed off by local 917 00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:56,160 Speaker 1: law enforcement, it just wasn't a crime. Newspaper archives for 918 00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:59,959 Speaker 1: the next few years show a frustrating pattern. Crosses were 919 00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,960 Speaker 1: burning all over the state, and every time it happened, 920 00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:07,000 Speaker 1: it was dismissed as some isolated incident, some kind of prank, 921 00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:12,720 Speaker 1: some kind of childish active vandalism. Every cross that burned 922 00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:15,720 Speaker 1: in Virginia was written off by newspapers and cops here 923 00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:19,400 Speaker 1: in Virginia, But those same papers ran stories of flaming 924 00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:24,200 Speaker 1: crosses in Tennessee and South Carolina, properly identifying those as 925 00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:28,200 Speaker 1: what they were, a burning line in the sand, keeping 926 00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,280 Speaker 1: black Southerners from moving into white neighborhoods, from getting elected 927 00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,760 Speaker 1: to office, from gaining civil rights, and from feeling safe 928 00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:39,200 Speaker 1: in their homes. In late nineteen forty nine, a series 929 00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:43,040 Speaker 1: of cross burnings, culminating in an explosion, destroyed the construction 930 00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:46,160 Speaker 1: site for a planned housing project for black residents in Nashville. 931 00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,560 Speaker 1: After Judge Wade's wearing open South Carolina's previously whitees only 932 00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:55,000 Speaker 1: primaries to black voters, his home was targeted repeatedly with 933 00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:59,160 Speaker 1: crosses burning on his front lawn in nineteen fifty. But 934 00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,000 Speaker 1: the same papers that ran those wire stories from cities 935 00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,840 Speaker 1: and other states wrote their own local coverage of cross 936 00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:08,600 Speaker 1: burnings closer to home, with a very different tone. When 937 00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:12,000 Speaker 1: a cross burned in Nashville or Charleston, it's safe to 938 00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:16,560 Speaker 1: say that those cities have racial unrest. Those cities have 939 00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:20,400 Speaker 1: the clan. In the summer of nineteen fifty, several black 940 00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:23,240 Speaker 1: residents of Colonial Beach, Virginia, found a lawsuit to force 941 00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:25,600 Speaker 1: the locality to allow them to swim in a public beach. 942 00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:29,680 Speaker 1: The town relented, there was no need to go to court. 943 00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:33,760 Speaker 1: The beaches are open to all residents. But when those 944 00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:35,840 Speaker 1: black residents and their attorney went to the beach to 945 00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:40,480 Speaker 1: see if that was true, five hundred white men attacked 946 00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:46,080 Speaker 1: the fifteen black beach goers. Later that week, crosses burned 947 00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:50,080 Speaker 1: all down the beach. Another cross was erected and burned 948 00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:53,800 Speaker 1: outside of the Black church, accompanied by rifle fire, and 949 00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:58,400 Speaker 1: the letters k k K were scrawled on sidewalks all 950 00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:02,840 Speaker 1: over black neighborhoods. The town council took no official notice 951 01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,360 Speaker 1: of the cross burnings and said they not only had 952 01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:08,040 Speaker 1: no obligation to anticipate on the rest of the beach, 953 01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:11,200 Speaker 1: but it would in fact amount to discrimination to have 954 01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:14,240 Speaker 1: done anything to ensure those black residents could access the beach. 955 01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:18,680 Speaker 1: There was no KKK in Virginia nineteen fifty. Just look 956 01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:22,440 Speaker 1: at any newspaper anywhere in the state. When a woman 957 01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,360 Speaker 1: had found a cross burning on her front porch in 958 01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:27,440 Speaker 1: Noffolk in September of nineteen fifty, the police told then 959 01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:30,320 Speaker 1: Offolk Ledger Dispatch that it was only a small cross, 960 01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:34,320 Speaker 1: just two feet high, and quote, the clan usually puts 961 01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:38,560 Speaker 1: on a bigger show. There had been eight cross burnings 962 01:00:38,600 --> 01:00:40,920 Speaker 1: in neighboring Nansaman County in just the last few months. 963 01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:46,040 Speaker 1: But this was probably just mischievous kids. The Bristol, Virginia, 964 01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:49,040 Speaker 1: Tennessee And reported in October of nineteen fifty that the 965 01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:52,040 Speaker 1: twelve foot cross burned on a hillside near the reservoir, 966 01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:55,280 Speaker 1: where it was visible to hundreds of residents, was just 967 01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:58,760 Speaker 1: a prank. There's no way to know what those men 968 01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:01,760 Speaker 1: in hoods were doing up there. A police captain told 969 01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:05,120 Speaker 1: the paper that the Confederate flag left behind was evidence 970 01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:09,840 Speaker 1: that this was obviously just a prank. That same newspaper 971 01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:11,919 Speaker 1: had been running coverage of a clan march in South 972 01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:15,520 Speaker 1: Carolina just six weeks earlier. After letting up across in 973 01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:18,760 Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach, the clan marched into town, surrounding a black 974 01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:24,760 Speaker 1: dance hall. There was a riot. Charlie Fitzgerald stood in 975 01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:26,680 Speaker 1: the doorway of his bar with a gun, but he 976 01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:28,520 Speaker 1: never had a chance to fire it before the mob 977 01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:30,360 Speaker 1: beat him and shoved him into the trunk of a car. 978 01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:34,360 Speaker 1: The clansmen emptied their guns into the sides of the building, 979 01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,880 Speaker 1: riddling the walls with bullet holes and shattering all of 980 01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:40,680 Speaker 1: the windows. Amidst all this chaos, one of their own 981 01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:43,960 Speaker 1: took a stray bullet to the back. When his robes 982 01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:47,280 Speaker 1: were removed to the hospital where he died, he was 983 01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:52,120 Speaker 1: wearing a policeman's uniform Underneath. These stories running in the 984 01:01:52,120 --> 01:01:55,160 Speaker 1: same paper may give you some insight into a small 985 01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:58,560 Speaker 1: town police officer's eagerness to explain away these flames on 986 01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:03,720 Speaker 1: a hillside, But you can draw your own conclusions the 987 01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:08,200 Speaker 1: clan was thriving again across the South. In January of 988 01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,080 Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, the state of Georgia outlawed crossburning in 989 01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:13,640 Speaker 1: an effort to stem the tide of this white robed violence. 990 01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:17,560 Speaker 1: In February of nineteen fifty one, crosses were lit outside 991 01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:20,200 Speaker 1: the homes and businesses of black residence in Guchland and 992 01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:24,520 Speaker 1: in Raiko Counties in Virginia. Black families reported seeing half 993 01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:26,560 Speaker 1: a dozen men firing their guns into the air as 994 01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:29,840 Speaker 1: they ran back to their cars after lighting the flames. 995 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:33,880 Speaker 1: The FBI said it was a local matter. The sheriff 996 01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:38,800 Speaker 1: said it was pranksters. When the local NAACP demanded an investigation, 997 01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:43,040 Speaker 1: the county prosecutor said there is definitely no racial relations 998 01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:48,200 Speaker 1: question connected to the recent cross burnings. By June of 999 01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:52,120 Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina had joined 1000 01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:57,440 Speaker 1: Georgia in banning cross burning across the South. The crosses burned, 1001 01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:01,320 Speaker 1: and there was no question about what it meant except 1002 01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:05,280 Speaker 1: when it happened here. The same papers that ran the 1003 01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:08,560 Speaker 1: wire stories about the legislative attempts to combat clan activity 1004 01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,000 Speaker 1: everywhere else said the six foot cross doused and gasoline 1005 01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:15,800 Speaker 1: in the middle of Route one in Stafford was just 1006 01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:20,440 Speaker 1: a prank. It was just kids messing with traffic. In 1007 01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:23,040 Speaker 1: August of that year, a widow and Appamannox was awoken 1008 01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:24,400 Speaker 1: in the middle of the night by the sound of 1009 01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:28,000 Speaker 1: an explosion. The cross burning on her front lawn had 1010 01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:32,440 Speaker 1: ignited the dynamite late at its base. A postcard from 1011 01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:36,720 Speaker 1: the clan was left to the scene. The newspaper ran 1012 01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:41,520 Speaker 1: the headline crossfire lacks motive, with the sheriff quoted saying, 1013 01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:45,600 Speaker 1: my office dropped the matter. It was probably a personal 1014 01:03:45,640 --> 01:03:51,040 Speaker 1: thing or just some children. In my haphazard search of 1015 01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:55,320 Speaker 1: newspaper archives, I found nearly a hundred of these pranks 1016 01:03:55,880 --> 01:03:59,840 Speaker 1: in Virginia in the nineteen fifties. A white cop tells 1017 01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:03,040 Speaker 1: white reporter that there's nothing to worry about here. It's 1018 01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:07,280 Speaker 1: only a joke. As a black family douses the burning 1019 01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:24,120 Speaker 1: embers on their law. No one could see the racial 1020 01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:27,600 Speaker 1: terror we already had here at home. It was always kids, 1021 01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:32,240 Speaker 1: or vandals or pranksters. But in nineteen fifty two, the 1022 01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:36,640 Speaker 1: Virginia State Legislature was finally ready to act, responding to 1023 01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:39,680 Speaker 1: reports that Florida Clan leader Bill Hendrix was planning a 1024 01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:43,480 Speaker 1: rally in Richmond, and South Carolina clan leader Thomas Hamilton 1025 01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:45,920 Speaker 1: was planning to start chapters in more than a dozen towns. 1026 01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:49,120 Speaker 1: In Virginia, a bill was introduced to outlaw the wearing 1027 01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:52,960 Speaker 1: of masks in public at the urging of religious groups, 1028 01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:56,560 Speaker 1: a ban on crossburning was added. The threat of these 1029 01:04:57,000 --> 01:05:01,040 Speaker 1: out of town clansmen pushed the bill through without significant pushback, 1030 01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:03,880 Speaker 1: and it was signed by Governor John Battle in April 1031 01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:09,680 Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. But changing the law didn't change anyone's attitudes. 1032 01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:13,000 Speaker 1: Throughout the nineteen fifties, most of the crossburning stories I 1033 01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:17,320 Speaker 1: could find were dismissed as pranks, and if I'm being 1034 01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:21,720 Speaker 1: entirely honest, some of them might have been. There were 1035 01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:25,560 Speaker 1: several crossburnings in Newport News that teenage boys eventually confessed to, 1036 01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:28,000 Speaker 1: with one cross being placed on the law of a 1037 01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:32,120 Speaker 1: state delegate by mistake. The boys said they were pranking 1038 01:05:32,160 --> 01:05:34,920 Speaker 1: their high school teachers, and I did find at least 1039 01:05:34,960 --> 01:05:37,880 Speaker 1: three stories of high school teachers and Newport News who 1040 01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:41,400 Speaker 1: had crosses burned on their lawn. The boys' names were 1041 01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:44,120 Speaker 1: never published, so I don't know what they got up 1042 01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:48,520 Speaker 1: to later in life, and I have to wonder exactly 1043 01:05:48,520 --> 01:05:53,120 Speaker 1: what kind of pranks these were. It's the fifties. Had 1044 01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:56,760 Speaker 1: those teachers expressed support for integration, Did they go on 1045 01:05:56,840 --> 01:06:00,200 Speaker 1: dates with black women or rent property to black tenants? 1046 01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:03,280 Speaker 1: It wasn't unheard of for behavior like that to earn 1047 01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:05,680 Speaker 1: a white man a visit from those seeking to enforce 1048 01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:10,400 Speaker 1: the established social order. But it's impossible to say seventy 1049 01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:13,320 Speaker 1: years later what prompted those nighttime visits from their students. 1050 01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:18,360 Speaker 1: And I tell you about these ones that maybe were pranks, 1051 01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:22,520 Speaker 1: because I don't think any of them being pranks really 1052 01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:26,080 Speaker 1: helps explain it at all. If anything, it underscores how 1053 01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:30,960 Speaker 1: widespread and commonly understood this was as a symbol. You 1054 01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:33,720 Speaker 1: didn't have to be a klansman to know what it meant. 1055 01:06:35,120 --> 01:06:38,280 Speaker 1: You didn't have to mean it yourself to know how 1056 01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:46,080 Speaker 1: it would be read. In nineteen sixty five, George Lincoln Rockwell, 1057 01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:49,520 Speaker 1: the founder of the American Nazi Party, ran for governor 1058 01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:54,480 Speaker 1: here in Virginia. He didn't win, obviously, he got nearly 1059 01:06:54,520 --> 01:06:58,120 Speaker 1: six thousand votes, though one percent of the total cast. 1060 01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:04,040 Speaker 1: The new governor was Mills Godwin, once a staunch segregationist 1061 01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:07,280 Speaker 1: who had distanced himself from the political machine of Harry Bird. 1062 01:07:08,280 --> 01:07:10,400 Speaker 1: Whether he had a change of heart or just saw 1063 01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:12,680 Speaker 1: the writing on the wall after the failure of Virginia's 1064 01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:17,480 Speaker 1: massive resistance to school desegregation is impossible to say. But 1065 01:07:17,560 --> 01:07:21,760 Speaker 1: in December of nineteen sixty six, Governor Mills Godwin announced 1066 01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:25,040 Speaker 1: a one thousand dollars reward for information leading to the 1067 01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:31,640 Speaker 1: arrest and conviction of crossburners. In response, the klan burned 1068 01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:33,400 Speaker 1: across outside the Governor's mansion. 1069 01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:39,000 Speaker 4: The clan did rear its head in certain areas of 1070 01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:43,360 Speaker 4: Virginia in that period, even to the extent that they 1071 01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:48,040 Speaker 4: burned a cross on the sidewalk right behind the Governor's mansion. 1072 01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:52,800 Speaker 4: And we made some arrest and there were some sentences 1073 01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:56,840 Speaker 4: meeted out to those that were convicted, and it had 1074 01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:01,080 Speaker 4: a real deterring effect. 1075 01:08:01,480 --> 01:08:05,600 Speaker 1: A rash of cross burnings followed. Crosses burned all over 1076 01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:08,640 Speaker 1: the state of Virginia in protest of Governor Godwin's declaration 1077 01:08:08,720 --> 01:08:12,440 Speaker 1: of war against the Clan. On New Year's Day nineteen 1078 01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:16,280 Speaker 1: sixty seven, Wilson Ralph Price and his wife, Nanny Jane 1079 01:08:16,320 --> 01:08:21,040 Speaker 1: Price were arrested for burning across on a sidewalk in Richmond, 1080 01:08:21,320 --> 01:08:23,519 Speaker 1: all three of their young children were waiting for them 1081 01:08:23,520 --> 01:08:26,759 Speaker 1: in their parked car, where police found several loaded guns, 1082 01:08:27,240 --> 01:08:30,080 Speaker 1: a second cross they intended to burn elsewhere later that day, 1083 01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:35,040 Speaker 1: and a stack of clan literature. Barry Black wasn't the 1084 01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:39,240 Speaker 1: first clansman to fight this law and win. Price had 1085 01:08:39,240 --> 01:08:42,240 Speaker 1: his conviction overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court a year later, 1086 01:08:42,760 --> 01:08:47,240 Speaker 1: with the court ruling that technically the law didn't apply here. 1087 01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:52,519 Speaker 1: The Prices had burned that cross on public property, on 1088 01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:57,599 Speaker 1: the sidewalk, not on the property of another, as stated 1089 01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:01,479 Speaker 1: in the statute. The Virginia General Assembly amended the law 1090 01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:05,360 Speaker 1: that year to include a bannon crossburning on public property 1091 01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:09,479 Speaker 1: as well. In nineteen sixty eight, the state Supreme Court 1092 01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:12,240 Speaker 1: seemed to believe that the purpose of banning crossburning was 1093 01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:16,760 Speaker 1: to protect private property. The law didn't protect people, it 1094 01:09:16,800 --> 01:09:21,880 Speaker 1: protected their laws, and with this amendment, the legislature clarified 1095 01:09:21,880 --> 01:09:26,439 Speaker 1: their intention. The law isn't about property or trustpass or 1096 01:09:26,479 --> 01:09:29,800 Speaker 1: the possibility of danger from the flames themselves. It is 1097 01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:35,760 Speaker 1: intended to prevent a particular act of intimidation. But in 1098 01:09:35,800 --> 01:09:38,439 Speaker 1: their efforts to close off this avenue of attack, they 1099 01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:43,759 Speaker 1: accidentally created another This amendment to the statute also added 1100 01:09:43,840 --> 01:09:47,559 Speaker 1: language that quote, the unlawful burning of a cross shall 1101 01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:50,960 Speaker 1: be prima facia evidence of the intention to intimidate a 1102 01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:55,919 Speaker 1: person or group of persons. This language was likely intended 1103 01:09:55,920 --> 01:09:58,760 Speaker 1: to get around the defense of whill it was just 1104 01:09:58,800 --> 01:10:02,960 Speaker 1: a prank. Burning across is such a heinous act with 1105 01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:06,400 Speaker 1: no other purpose than to intimidate that if you can 1106 01:10:06,439 --> 01:10:09,400 Speaker 1: prove it was done at all, then the starting assumption 1107 01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:14,120 Speaker 1: is that it was done to intimidate. So this amendment 1108 01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:16,519 Speaker 1: to the law shifts the burden of proof to the 1109 01:10:16,560 --> 01:10:21,040 Speaker 1: party trying to prove otherwise. So when Barry lit that 1110 01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,240 Speaker 1: cross in Carroll County on August twenty second, nineteen ninety eight, 1111 01:10:24,840 --> 01:10:28,280 Speaker 1: the law on the books read, it shall be unlawful 1112 01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:31,920 Speaker 1: for any person or persons, with the intent of intimidating 1113 01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:35,439 Speaker 1: any person or group of persons, to burn, or cause 1114 01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:39,120 Speaker 1: to be burned across on the property of another, a 1115 01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:43,200 Speaker 1: highway or other public space. Any person who shall violate 1116 01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:46,320 Speaker 1: this section shall be guilty of a classic felony. Any 1117 01:10:46,320 --> 01:10:48,920 Speaker 1: such burning of a cross shall be primophacia evidence of 1118 01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:51,800 Speaker 1: an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons, 1119 01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:57,439 Speaker 1: and Barry had done that. When the sheriff's lieutenant arrived, 1120 01:10:57,439 --> 01:11:01,639 Speaker 1: he asked who lit this cross, and Barry stepped forward 1121 01:11:01,640 --> 01:11:05,439 Speaker 1: and claimed responsibility. He was charged in Carroll County and 1122 01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:07,840 Speaker 1: released on bond, but he was having a hell of 1123 01:11:07,880 --> 01:11:10,840 Speaker 1: a time finding a lawyer. Most lawyers in the area 1124 01:11:10,840 --> 01:11:15,680 Speaker 1: wouldn't even return his calls. But then, as in so 1125 01:11:15,800 --> 01:11:18,679 Speaker 1: many cases of extremists trying to force their way into 1126 01:11:18,680 --> 01:11:24,439 Speaker 1: the conversation about civil rights, the ACLU stepped up without 1127 01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:29,400 Speaker 1: even having to be asked. 1128 01:11:28,320 --> 01:11:32,320 Speaker 3: Well, I walked into the courthouse. I just looked at him. 1129 01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:36,880 Speaker 3: He says, is there something wrong here? And I says 1130 01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:41,000 Speaker 3: you're David Ball He said yeah. I says you're black. 1131 01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:44,160 Speaker 3: He says yeah. I said, are you going to fight 1132 01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:46,880 Speaker 3: for me? Are you going to give me one hundred 1133 01:11:46,880 --> 01:11:48,880 Speaker 3: and fifty one percent? He says, I'm not going to 1134 01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:51,680 Speaker 3: change your views, He says, in my views about you 1135 01:11:51,760 --> 01:11:54,200 Speaker 3: aren't the greatest in the world either. He says, but 1136 01:11:54,280 --> 01:11:56,400 Speaker 3: I will give you one hundred and fifty one percent. 1137 01:11:56,439 --> 01:11:58,760 Speaker 3: You have my word on that, sir. He says, I'll 1138 01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:01,479 Speaker 3: defend you to the end, and life is good enough. 1139 01:12:04,640 --> 01:12:08,680 Speaker 1: The Virginia ACLU was no stranger to this strange Bedfellow's 1140 01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:12,240 Speaker 1: type of attorney client relationship. Just a few years earlier, 1141 01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:14,920 Speaker 1: they'd taken on the case of Buddy Hernandez, a clansman 1142 01:12:14,960 --> 01:12:17,000 Speaker 1: who was arrested in nineteen eighty nine for handing out 1143 01:12:17,040 --> 01:12:20,960 Speaker 1: clan literature while wearing full clan regalia, including a hood 1144 01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:24,919 Speaker 1: that covered his face. Like the cross burning law, Virginia's 1145 01:12:24,920 --> 01:12:28,040 Speaker 1: anti masking statute was adopted in nineteen fifty two with 1146 01:12:28,120 --> 01:12:32,559 Speaker 1: the explicit intention of curtailing clan activity. The anti masking 1147 01:12:32,600 --> 01:12:36,360 Speaker 1: statute was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court, and the 1148 01:12:36,439 --> 01:12:39,599 Speaker 1: actual Supreme Court declined to hear Hernandez's case. In nineteen 1149 01:12:39,680 --> 01:12:45,479 Speaker 1: ninety four, ACLU attorney David Baugh went to Batford Barry, 1150 01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:50,559 Speaker 1: and he spent years on the case. When the pair 1151 01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:53,439 Speaker 1: first appeared in court together, the Richmond Times Dispatch ran 1152 01:12:53,479 --> 01:12:59,360 Speaker 1: the headline crowd likely as black defends clansmen. The news 1153 01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:03,040 Speaker 1: stories can be a little tough to parse sometimes because 1154 01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:08,080 Speaker 1: our klansman's name is black, and the African American attorney 1155 01:13:08,120 --> 01:13:11,400 Speaker 1: representing him is being referred to often in these newspapers 1156 01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:16,080 Speaker 1: as a black and the case was getting a lot 1157 01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:19,559 Speaker 1: of publicity. This tiny town of just twenty seven hundred 1158 01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:23,799 Speaker 1: was suddenly swarming with reporters and lawyers. The state Attorney 1159 01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:26,800 Speaker 1: General's office sent a team to assist the local prosecutor. 1160 01:13:28,360 --> 01:13:31,360 Speaker 1: Carroll County District Court clerk Christine Beck told the paper, 1161 01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:35,880 Speaker 1: it's going to be a circus, and added, I guess 1162 01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:39,280 Speaker 1: some things are just fascinating, like the sex lies of 1163 01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:43,280 Speaker 1: the president. This would have been right around the time 1164 01:13:43,360 --> 01:13:46,879 Speaker 1: the Star report was released to the public, and everyone 1165 01:13:46,960 --> 01:13:49,599 Speaker 1: was just in a frenzy about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 1166 01:13:51,600 --> 01:13:53,960 Speaker 1: The last few months of nineteen ninety eight were hectic 1167 01:13:53,960 --> 01:13:57,040 Speaker 1: for Barry. Now he was fighting his own case down 1168 01:13:57,080 --> 01:13:59,599 Speaker 1: in Virginia, but the four klansmen arrested at the White 1169 01:13:59,640 --> 01:14:03,680 Speaker 1: Bride picnic were still fighting their cases at home in Pennsylvania. 1170 01:14:04,120 --> 01:14:06,360 Speaker 1: A few weeks after this cross burning, Barry was kicked 1171 01:14:06,360 --> 01:14:08,600 Speaker 1: out of the courtroom during a hearing in Don Penrod's 1172 01:14:08,640 --> 01:14:12,200 Speaker 1: case for pointing his rifle at that state trooper, and 1173 01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:14,719 Speaker 1: Barry had to appear in court repeatedly in his fight 1174 01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:18,320 Speaker 1: to keep his job as Constable. He's under more scrutiny 1175 01:14:18,320 --> 01:14:21,599 Speaker 1: than ever. His local prosecutor, state troopers, and the courts 1176 01:14:21,640 --> 01:14:24,960 Speaker 1: in Virginia were just waiting for Barry to make a mistake. 1177 01:14:26,720 --> 01:14:29,200 Speaker 1: In March of nineteen ninety nine, a judge in Virginia 1178 01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:32,960 Speaker 1: ruled against emotion to dismiss Barry's criminal case, rejecting the 1179 01:14:33,040 --> 01:14:37,439 Speaker 1: argument that crossburning was protected First Amendment conduct. A few 1180 01:14:37,479 --> 01:14:40,599 Speaker 1: days later, Barry was back in court in Pennsylvania, railing 1181 01:14:40,600 --> 01:14:43,120 Speaker 1: against the corrupt judicial system trying to take away his 1182 01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:46,960 Speaker 1: job as constable. He told reporters in the hallway after 1183 01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:49,479 Speaker 1: the hearing that if they would just let him keep 1184 01:14:49,520 --> 01:14:53,000 Speaker 1: the job, he would be too busy working to keep 1185 01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:57,439 Speaker 1: up his clan activities. That's not really a great argument 1186 01:14:57,680 --> 01:15:00,559 Speaker 1: if you ask me, you know, just let me be 1187 01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:03,559 Speaker 1: a cop and I'll be too busy to do crime. 1188 01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:09,320 Speaker 1: I don't know that that's very convincing. And while we're 1189 01:15:09,360 --> 01:15:12,559 Speaker 1: on the subject of guys who probably should not be cops, 1190 01:15:13,120 --> 01:15:14,920 Speaker 1: I want to pick up a thread from the story 1191 01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:19,160 Speaker 1: last week. Barry's involvement in the war on the Casanova 1192 01:15:19,200 --> 01:15:23,160 Speaker 1: Lounge doesn't really factor into this week's story. He's too 1193 01:15:23,200 --> 01:15:25,120 Speaker 1: busy with his own problems at this point to be 1194 01:15:25,160 --> 01:15:29,000 Speaker 1: bothering with that gay bar But the situation was ongoing, 1195 01:15:29,800 --> 01:15:31,640 Speaker 1: and it was around this time in the spring of 1196 01:15:31,680 --> 01:15:35,280 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine that something the bar's patrons had long 1197 01:15:35,439 --> 01:15:40,320 Speaker 1: suspected was proved to be true. The bigots had an 1198 01:15:40,360 --> 01:15:46,360 Speaker 1: inside man. Ron Immler, the police chief and neighboring Connamau Township, 1199 01:15:46,840 --> 01:15:51,360 Speaker 1: had been running license plates for the protesters and supplying 1200 01:15:51,360 --> 01:15:53,800 Speaker 1: them with the names and home addresses of the people 1201 01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:58,240 Speaker 1: who visited the gay bar. Imler denied these accusations, but 1202 01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:03,880 Speaker 1: he suddenly retired. The Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Technology 1203 01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:07,400 Speaker 1: Service informed the town's supervisors in a letter that Ron 1204 01:16:07,439 --> 01:16:11,280 Speaker 1: Immler had violated state and federal law by providing confidential 1205 01:16:11,280 --> 01:16:15,439 Speaker 1: information obtained through state computer databases to an unauthorized person. 1206 01:16:17,080 --> 01:16:19,759 Speaker 1: It's not clear to me if Immler was ever charged 1207 01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:22,519 Speaker 1: or prosecuted for this. There's no record in the online 1208 01:16:22,600 --> 01:16:25,960 Speaker 1: information system for Pennsylvania's courts. It could be that this 1209 01:16:26,040 --> 01:16:28,800 Speaker 1: is very old. I did find other records from that year. 1210 01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:31,760 Speaker 1: It could be that he had it sealed or expunged. 1211 01:16:32,400 --> 01:16:36,559 Speaker 1: But it's possible that he was just never charged. So 1212 01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:39,320 Speaker 1: we do have on record that the state police informed 1213 01:16:39,360 --> 01:16:42,120 Speaker 1: the township that their police chief had broken the law, 1214 01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:45,639 Speaker 1: but it's not clear that the local prosecutor ever brought 1215 01:16:45,640 --> 01:16:49,960 Speaker 1: those charges, so it's not always as literal as that 1216 01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:52,840 Speaker 1: dead clansman in South Carolina who was wearing his police 1217 01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:56,479 Speaker 1: uniform under his robes, and Barry wasn't the only law 1218 01:16:56,560 --> 01:16:59,080 Speaker 1: enforcement official in the area whose vision of law and 1219 01:16:59,320 --> 01:17:03,600 Speaker 1: order did at harassing that bar out of existence. But 1220 01:17:03,680 --> 01:17:07,240 Speaker 1: back to Barry, things didn't improve much for Barry as 1221 01:17:07,320 --> 01:17:11,200 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, wore On Don Penrod and two other 1222 01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:13,840 Speaker 1: clansmen were convicted for threatening those state troopers at the 1223 01:17:13,840 --> 01:17:17,640 Speaker 1: White Pride picnic, and Barry was once again removed from 1224 01:17:17,680 --> 01:17:20,920 Speaker 1: the office of Constable by the courts. He tried to 1225 01:17:20,920 --> 01:17:23,240 Speaker 1: appeal the decision as he had the first time around, 1226 01:17:23,280 --> 01:17:27,280 Speaker 1: but it didn't work out. He filed a federal lawsuit 1227 01:17:27,280 --> 01:17:30,160 Speaker 1: against the state police, but his case got tossed before 1228 01:17:30,200 --> 01:17:33,200 Speaker 1: it even got off the ground. He had to bail 1229 01:17:33,200 --> 01:17:35,519 Speaker 1: his son, Barry Junior, out of the local jail three 1230 01:17:35,600 --> 01:17:38,719 Speaker 1: times that year, including one night after the younger Barry 1231 01:17:38,760 --> 01:17:42,519 Speaker 1: was arrested for threatening someone with a gun, and in 1232 01:17:42,640 --> 01:17:45,200 Speaker 1: June of nineteen ninety nine, an old white jury in 1233 01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:50,000 Speaker 1: Carroll County deliberated for just twenty five minutes before finding 1234 01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:54,800 Speaker 1: Barry Black guilty of cross burning under that Virginia statute. 1235 01:17:55,120 --> 01:17:56,840 Speaker 1: They had the option of giving him up to five 1236 01:17:56,920 --> 01:18:00,439 Speaker 1: years behind bars for this CLASSICX felony, but the jury 1237 01:18:00,439 --> 01:18:02,919 Speaker 1: decided on just a twenty five hundred dollars fine. 1238 01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,920 Speaker 3: I can't just say, hey, no, here's twenty five hundred dollars, 1239 01:18:07,960 --> 01:18:10,439 Speaker 3: forget it. If I did that, I'm letting my race down. 1240 01:18:10,640 --> 01:18:13,759 Speaker 3: I have to make people know that America is still 1241 01:18:14,000 --> 01:18:16,840 Speaker 3: a land of opportunity, that America is still a land 1242 01:18:16,840 --> 01:18:20,519 Speaker 3: of democracy, and that the Constitution United States of America 1243 01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:21,839 Speaker 3: still means something. 1244 01:18:24,920 --> 01:18:28,040 Speaker 1: His attorney, David Ball, vowed to appeal the conviction, saying 1245 01:18:28,520 --> 01:18:31,320 Speaker 1: the cross was burned as part of their ceremony, not 1246 01:18:31,360 --> 01:18:35,519 Speaker 1: because they wanted to intimidate anyone, and the first appeal 1247 01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:38,479 Speaker 1: didn't go their way. In December of two thousand, the 1248 01:18:38,560 --> 01:18:42,920 Speaker 1: Virginia Court of Appeals upheld Barry's conviction, but they kept fighting. 1249 01:18:44,080 --> 01:18:47,360 Speaker 1: A year later, the Virginia Supreme Court agreed with Barry 1250 01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:53,240 Speaker 1: Virginia's crossburning law was unconstitutional. The opinion noted that similar 1251 01:18:53,280 --> 01:18:56,640 Speaker 1: statutes in Maryland and South Carolina had been ruled unconstitutional 1252 01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:59,960 Speaker 1: in recent years, and the law on the books was indistinct, 1253 01:19:00,000 --> 01:19:02,559 Speaker 1: inquishable from the Minnesota law struck down in the nineteen 1254 01:19:02,600 --> 01:19:06,400 Speaker 1: ninety two Supreme Court case rav versus City of Saint Paul. 1255 01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:10,879 Speaker 1: The issue here arises in that nineteen sixty eight amendment 1256 01:19:10,880 --> 01:19:15,360 Speaker 1: to the law about the act itself being sufficient evidence 1257 01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:19,559 Speaker 1: of intent, and just a quick side note here. I 1258 01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,679 Speaker 1: don't want a Monday morning quarterback the State Supreme Court, 1259 01:19:23,040 --> 01:19:26,760 Speaker 1: but they are mistaken about something here. The opinion incorrectly 1260 01:19:26,800 --> 01:19:29,640 Speaker 1: states that the prima fascia evidence of intent language was 1261 01:19:29,680 --> 01:19:33,800 Speaker 1: added in nineteen seventy five, but it was nineteen sixty eight. 1262 01:19:33,840 --> 01:19:36,840 Speaker 1: And I can promise you that I pulled copies of 1263 01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:39,839 Speaker 1: the Acts of the General Assembly for every legislative session 1264 01:19:40,080 --> 01:19:43,960 Speaker 1: that this code section was touched. The prima facial requirement 1265 01:19:44,160 --> 01:19:47,400 Speaker 1: was inserted when the law was amended in nineteen sixty eight, 1266 01:19:48,080 --> 01:19:52,439 Speaker 1: after the State Supreme Court overturned Wilson Price's conviction. I 1267 01:19:52,520 --> 01:19:55,040 Speaker 1: think the origin of this error is that the code 1268 01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:58,639 Speaker 1: section does show a revision was made in nineteen seventy five, 1269 01:19:59,320 --> 01:20:01,320 Speaker 1: but if you pull the full text of the nineteen 1270 01:20:01,360 --> 01:20:05,960 Speaker 1: seventy five session, it's because everything in Title eighteen was 1271 01:20:06,120 --> 01:20:10,040 Speaker 1: technically amended in nineteen seventy five. Because they rearranged and 1272 01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:14,120 Speaker 1: recodified the entire criminal Code, so the language of the 1273 01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:18,080 Speaker 1: statute stayed the same between nineteen sixty eight nineteen seventy five. 1274 01:20:18,240 --> 01:20:21,960 Speaker 1: They just changed the numbers. That doesn't matter at all. 1275 01:20:22,200 --> 01:20:25,200 Speaker 1: I didn't need to tell you that. I'm just flexing 1276 01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:27,320 Speaker 1: on some court clerk from twenty four years ago. I 1277 01:20:27,360 --> 01:20:34,240 Speaker 1: guess sorry. But anyway, this decision rested on that language. 1278 01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:38,320 Speaker 1: The law couldn't be content neutral if this baked in 1279 01:20:38,360 --> 01:20:42,680 Speaker 1: assumption of intent rested on the historical context of crossburning. 1280 01:20:43,720 --> 01:20:46,200 Speaker 1: So basically, the court is saying, you can't have it 1281 01:20:46,240 --> 01:20:50,280 Speaker 1: both ways. Either the law is constitutional because it is 1282 01:20:50,360 --> 01:20:53,839 Speaker 1: content neutral it applies to everyone regardless of their motivation, 1283 01:20:54,880 --> 01:20:59,320 Speaker 1: or you can justify the inference of intimidation by relying 1284 01:20:59,360 --> 01:21:02,360 Speaker 1: on the history of the clan. But both of those 1285 01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:06,040 Speaker 1: things can't be true at the same time. And because 1286 01:21:06,080 --> 01:21:09,200 Speaker 1: Barry wasn't the only person arrested for burning across in 1287 01:21:09,280 --> 01:21:12,719 Speaker 1: Virginia in nineteen ninety eight, this appeal to the State 1288 01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:16,960 Speaker 1: Supreme Court was actually three cases rolled up into one. 1289 01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:20,679 Speaker 1: So the court wasn't just reversing Barry's conviction in this opinion, 1290 01:21:21,080 --> 01:21:23,920 Speaker 1: they were also throwing out convictions against Richard Elliott and 1291 01:21:24,000 --> 01:21:27,639 Speaker 1: Jonathan O'Mara, two men had been convicted for burning across 1292 01:21:27,640 --> 01:21:32,880 Speaker 1: on a black family's lawn. Now Barry has an argument here. 1293 01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:36,639 Speaker 1: I don't like it. I don't have to like it, 1294 01:21:37,200 --> 01:21:41,920 Speaker 1: but it's true. There wasn't really a victim in this case. 1295 01:21:42,880 --> 01:21:45,880 Speaker 1: He was on private property at the invitation of the owner, 1296 01:21:46,720 --> 01:21:49,960 Speaker 1: and they didn't really intend for anybody to see what 1297 01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:53,680 Speaker 1: they were doing. The landowner's niece by marriage, who was 1298 01:21:53,720 --> 01:21:56,439 Speaker 1: living elsewhere on the property, did testify in the original 1299 01:21:56,479 --> 01:21:59,640 Speaker 1: case that she saw the cross burning and had been frightened, 1300 01:22:00,479 --> 01:22:03,719 Speaker 1: but she was arguably not any kind of intended audience. 1301 01:22:03,760 --> 01:22:06,799 Speaker 1: It's not even clear if they knew she was there. 1302 01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:10,400 Speaker 1: For Elliot and O'Mara, though their cases did not rely 1303 01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:15,040 Speaker 1: on prima facia evidence of intent, there was actual proof 1304 01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:19,040 Speaker 1: of intent. There was a victim here. They absolutely intended 1305 01:22:19,040 --> 01:22:21,960 Speaker 1: to intimidate that family and should rightfully be punished under 1306 01:22:21,960 --> 01:22:25,519 Speaker 1: this law. So the State of Virginia appealed the state 1307 01:22:25,560 --> 01:22:29,000 Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling to the Supreme Court, and all three 1308 01:22:29,040 --> 01:22:32,639 Speaker 1: of these cases rolled right on up together. And I'll 1309 01:22:32,680 --> 01:22:35,680 Speaker 1: admit that before I started picking this story apart, my 1310 01:22:36,120 --> 01:22:39,559 Speaker 1: sort of general understanding of Commonwealth feed Black was that 1311 01:22:40,280 --> 01:22:43,560 Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled Virginia's cross burning law was unconstitutional, 1312 01:22:44,280 --> 01:22:47,600 Speaker 1: and that is what happened. But it's not entirely straightforward. 1313 01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:51,479 Speaker 1: Even the men's own lawyer, Rodney Smola, wasn't sure what 1314 01:22:51,560 --> 01:22:53,400 Speaker 1: to make of the decision the day he read it. 1315 01:22:55,760 --> 01:22:57,840 Speaker 3: I'm reading, and I read the first sentence, and I think, well, 1316 01:22:57,880 --> 01:22:59,280 Speaker 3: no I want, says no. 1317 01:22:59,360 --> 01:22:59,719 Speaker 1: I lost. 1318 01:22:59,760 --> 01:23:03,240 Speaker 3: And then I get through the first set of opinions 1319 01:23:03,280 --> 01:23:05,120 Speaker 3: by Justice O'Connor, and I wasn't sure. 1320 01:23:07,320 --> 01:23:11,040 Speaker 1: The decision announced by Justice Sandrada O'Connor was kind of 1321 01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:15,040 Speaker 1: a mixed bag. The court ruled it. Yes, the Virginia 1322 01:23:15,040 --> 01:23:17,960 Speaker 1: Supreme Court was right about the prima facia element of 1323 01:23:18,000 --> 01:23:19,720 Speaker 1: the law, making it unconstitutional. 1324 01:23:21,640 --> 01:23:24,599 Speaker 5: The act of burning across may mean that the person 1325 01:23:24,760 --> 01:23:31,200 Speaker 5: is engaging in constitutionally proscribable intimidation, or it may mean 1326 01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:34,920 Speaker 5: only that the person is engaged in core political speech. 1327 01:23:35,720 --> 01:23:40,000 Speaker 5: The prima facie provision blurs the line between these meanings. 1328 01:23:40,680 --> 01:23:45,160 Speaker 5: The First Amendment does not permit such a shortcut. Thus 1329 01:23:45,280 --> 01:23:48,559 Speaker 5: Black's conviction cannot stand and the judgment as to him 1330 01:23:48,680 --> 01:23:49,320 Speaker 5: is affirmed. 1331 01:23:52,120 --> 01:23:55,439 Speaker 1: But they were also clear in their opinion that Virginia 1332 01:23:55,600 --> 01:23:59,800 Speaker 1: can enforce a law banning cross burning so long as 1333 01:23:59,800 --> 01:24:03,439 Speaker 1: that law requires an intent to intimidate. If it can 1334 01:24:03,479 --> 01:24:05,639 Speaker 1: be proven that the act was carried out with such 1335 01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:10,080 Speaker 1: an intent, it's not free speech anymore. It's a true threat, 1336 01:24:10,479 --> 01:24:12,719 Speaker 1: and threats are not protected by the First Amendment. 1337 01:24:14,920 --> 01:24:18,200 Speaker 5: We hold that a state consistent with the First Amendment 1338 01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:23,520 Speaker 5: may ban crossburning carried out with the intent to intimidate. 1339 01:24:24,520 --> 01:24:28,080 Speaker 5: While a burning cross does not always convey a message 1340 01:24:28,120 --> 01:24:33,439 Speaker 5: of intimidation, often the crossburner intends that the recipients of 1341 01:24:33,479 --> 01:24:37,599 Speaker 5: the message fear for their lives, and when a cross 1342 01:24:37,680 --> 01:24:41,920 Speaker 5: burning is used to intimidate, few, if any, messages are 1343 01:24:41,960 --> 01:24:42,840 Speaker 5: more powerful. 1344 01:24:45,720 --> 01:24:50,880 Speaker 1: Very one. His conviction was overturned. The highest court in 1345 01:24:50,920 --> 01:24:55,080 Speaker 1: the land agreed it was his constitutional right to light 1346 01:24:55,120 --> 01:24:59,719 Speaker 1: that cross. The Supreme Court did reverse the Virginia Supreme 1347 01:24:59,720 --> 01:25:03,800 Speaker 1: Court rulings that had overturned Richard Elliott and Jonathan O'Mara's convictions. 1348 01:25:03,920 --> 01:25:06,280 Speaker 1: Their cases were kicked back down to the lower courts, 1349 01:25:06,280 --> 01:25:11,560 Speaker 1: and ultimately they were convicted and did serve time. And 1350 01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:15,240 Speaker 1: after a lifetime of fighting losing battles, you might think 1351 01:25:15,280 --> 01:25:21,040 Speaker 1: Barry came away from this emboldened, empowered, ready to ride 1352 01:25:21,080 --> 01:25:24,599 Speaker 1: this victory into more marches, more recruiting, more cross burnings, 1353 01:25:24,680 --> 01:25:31,920 Speaker 1: more anything. But he didn't really. He was fifty five 1354 01:25:32,080 --> 01:25:34,160 Speaker 1: the year the Supreme Court gave him their blessing to 1355 01:25:34,200 --> 01:25:39,160 Speaker 1: burn crosses. He probably did burn a few more, but 1356 01:25:39,240 --> 01:25:42,879 Speaker 1: none of them made the news. He'd planted some seeds 1357 01:25:42,880 --> 01:25:46,680 Speaker 1: as an Imperial Wizard, but none of them really thrived. 1358 01:25:48,160 --> 01:25:50,600 Speaker 1: Corporate entities with names that seemed to tie them to 1359 01:25:50,640 --> 01:25:54,720 Speaker 1: Barry's Keystone Nights existed in several states, but most of 1360 01:25:54,760 --> 01:25:59,120 Speaker 1: them withered and died. The International Keystone Knights of the 1361 01:25:59,160 --> 01:26:01,800 Speaker 1: Realm of Ohio registered with the State of Ohio in 1362 01:26:01,840 --> 01:26:05,000 Speaker 1: two thousand and two, but they stopped filing annual paperwork 1363 01:26:05,000 --> 01:26:10,720 Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. The Invisible Empire International Keystone Knights of 1364 01:26:10,720 --> 01:26:14,760 Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated was registered in Indiana by 1365 01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:19,000 Speaker 1: Barry himself in nineteen ninety seven. The South Carolina based 1366 01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:23,559 Speaker 1: nonprofit Barry Incorporated in nineteen ninety nine technically still exists 1367 01:26:23,560 --> 01:26:26,640 Speaker 1: on paper, despite the deaths of both Barry and the 1368 01:26:26,640 --> 01:26:30,640 Speaker 1: local clansmen he ran it with a Virginia chapter of 1369 01:26:30,640 --> 01:26:33,240 Speaker 1: the Keystone Knights Incorporated. A few months after the Supreme 1370 01:26:33,280 --> 01:26:35,760 Speaker 1: Court victory in two thousand and three, but there's no 1371 01:26:35,840 --> 01:26:38,400 Speaker 1: record I can find of the chapter getting up to anything, 1372 01:26:38,439 --> 01:26:41,400 Speaker 1: and all record of the entity disappears entirely after two 1373 01:26:41,439 --> 01:26:45,519 Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Stephen Dnkle, the one time leader of 1374 01:26:45,560 --> 01:26:48,760 Speaker 1: a Keystone Nights chapter in Alabama, was convicted of a 1375 01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:51,439 Speaker 1: federal hate crime in twenty fourteen for a cross burning. 1376 01:26:52,520 --> 01:26:54,840 Speaker 1: After his release, he was convicted again for a federal 1377 01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:58,879 Speaker 1: firearms related offense, and in twenty seventeen, he was sentenced 1378 01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:04,760 Speaker 1: to ten years for sexually assaulting an incapacitated woman. A 1379 01:27:04,800 --> 01:27:08,000 Speaker 1: man named Willis Fraser still files annual paperwork with the 1380 01:27:08,000 --> 01:27:11,599 Speaker 1: IRS for the Indiana based entity using the Keystone Knights name. 1381 01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:14,640 Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, Fraser tried to sue the 1382 01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:16,840 Speaker 1: state of Arkansas after he was fired from his job 1383 01:27:16,840 --> 01:27:19,040 Speaker 1: as a prison guard for being a member of the 1384 01:27:19,120 --> 01:27:24,120 Speaker 1: Keystone Knights, but his suit was dismissed. The only place 1385 01:27:24,160 --> 01:27:26,560 Speaker 1: the Keystone Knights have popped up in recent years was 1386 01:27:26,600 --> 01:27:29,040 Speaker 1: their legal battle with the state of Georgia over the 1387 01:27:29,040 --> 01:27:32,960 Speaker 1: denial of their application to the state's adopt a Highway program. 1388 01:27:33,479 --> 01:27:36,200 Speaker 1: The ACLU stepped in to help secure the clan's right 1389 01:27:36,400 --> 01:27:38,400 Speaker 1: to put their name on a sign on the side 1390 01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:42,719 Speaker 1: of a Georgia highway. That Keystone Knights chapter in Georgia 1391 01:27:42,760 --> 01:27:45,480 Speaker 1: seems to be the only one that really still exists, 1392 01:27:45,920 --> 01:27:48,840 Speaker 1: with Willis Fraser's name on some of that paperwork, tying 1393 01:27:48,840 --> 01:27:52,439 Speaker 1: it all the way back to Barry. The Keystone Knights 1394 01:27:52,479 --> 01:27:56,880 Speaker 1: are more or less dead, and Barry Black is entirely dead. 1395 01:27:57,360 --> 01:28:01,360 Speaker 1: He passed away in twenty eighteen. He lived a life 1396 01:28:01,360 --> 01:28:05,840 Speaker 1: of hatred. He spent most of his life feeling persecuted 1397 01:28:05,920 --> 01:28:09,839 Speaker 1: and aggrieved, fighting what he saw as a righteous battle 1398 01:28:09,920 --> 01:28:13,280 Speaker 1: for his civil rights. His right to disrupt life in 1399 01:28:13,320 --> 01:28:15,840 Speaker 1: a small town with his clan rallies, his right to 1400 01:28:15,880 --> 01:28:19,120 Speaker 1: serve as constable, his right to lead armed mobs that 1401 01:28:19,160 --> 01:28:22,960 Speaker 1: threatened to shoot cops, his right to burn crosses, his 1402 01:28:23,640 --> 01:28:29,360 Speaker 1: right to make his bigotry your problem. The part of 1403 01:28:29,360 --> 01:28:33,160 Speaker 1: Barry's legacy I'm most interested in, though, is the law 1404 01:28:33,200 --> 01:28:51,160 Speaker 1: written to stop the next Berry Black. While Barry Black's 1405 01:28:51,160 --> 01:28:54,160 Speaker 1: cross burning appeals were working their way through the appeals process, 1406 01:28:54,880 --> 01:28:59,040 Speaker 1: the Virginia General Assembly had already corrected the problem. They 1407 01:28:59,120 --> 01:29:01,720 Speaker 1: knew the law they used to prosecute Barry wasn't going 1408 01:29:01,720 --> 01:29:06,200 Speaker 1: to hold up, and instead of amending the existing statute, 1409 01:29:06,760 --> 01:29:08,880 Speaker 1: they passed a new law in two thousand and two. 1410 01:29:10,280 --> 01:29:13,080 Speaker 1: The language about prima fascia evidence of intent was gone, 1411 01:29:13,320 --> 01:29:20,599 Speaker 1: of course, but there was another huge change. The cross 1412 01:29:20,640 --> 01:29:27,880 Speaker 1: itself was missing. This new law outlawed burning anything if 1413 01:29:27,880 --> 01:29:31,599 Speaker 1: it was done with the intent to intimidate. It's still 1414 01:29:32,320 --> 01:29:36,559 Speaker 1: understood to be a cross burning law, but it doesn't 1415 01:29:36,560 --> 01:29:41,920 Speaker 1: actually say that. It doesn't say that at all. Cross 1416 01:29:41,960 --> 01:29:46,000 Speaker 1: burnings never stopped. Of course, they still happen here from 1417 01:29:46,040 --> 01:29:50,200 Speaker 1: time to time. In twenty twenty, a man named James 1418 01:29:50,200 --> 01:29:52,439 Speaker 1: Brown burned a cross outside the home of a black 1419 01:29:52,479 --> 01:29:55,719 Speaker 1: teenager who'd been involved in organizing Black Lives Matter protests 1420 01:29:55,720 --> 01:30:00,000 Speaker 1: in Marion, Virginia. He served eighteen months for criminal interference 1421 01:30:00,120 --> 01:30:04,840 Speaker 1: with federally protected rights. Darryl Orange was convicted in twenty 1422 01:30:04,880 --> 01:30:08,280 Speaker 1: ten under the original cross burning law, which was left 1423 01:30:08,320 --> 01:30:11,080 Speaker 1: on the books for some reason, after he burned a 1424 01:30:11,080 --> 01:30:15,840 Speaker 1: cross on his neighbor's lawn in Bedford, Virginia. Many crossburnings 1425 01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:20,080 Speaker 1: go unsolved or unprosecuted, and some of them are still 1426 01:30:20,080 --> 01:30:25,120 Speaker 1: dismissed as pranks. This new law has never really been 1427 01:30:25,360 --> 01:30:29,880 Speaker 1: tested until last year. I can only find a single 1428 01:30:29,960 --> 01:30:32,719 Speaker 1: case where it's ever even been used to charge someone. 1429 01:30:34,160 --> 01:30:36,160 Speaker 1: On the fourth of July and twenty nineteen, a man 1430 01:30:36,200 --> 01:30:38,320 Speaker 1: in Williamsburg pulled up in front of a wal Mart, 1431 01:30:39,160 --> 01:30:41,720 Speaker 1: got out of his car, put an American flag on 1432 01:30:41,760 --> 01:30:46,599 Speaker 1: the ground, and set it on fire. He didn't threaten anyone, 1433 01:30:46,680 --> 01:30:50,080 Speaker 1: He just lit it up, shouted a bit about how 1434 01:30:50,120 --> 01:30:55,679 Speaker 1: he hated America, and drove off. Wasn't shouting in anyone 1435 01:30:55,720 --> 01:30:59,280 Speaker 1: in particular, He wasn't particularly close to anyone or anything, 1436 01:31:00,080 --> 01:31:02,919 Speaker 1: and no one was injured and nothing was really damaged. 1437 01:31:04,520 --> 01:31:07,840 Speaker 1: The charge almost certainly would not have held up to 1438 01:31:07,880 --> 01:31:11,439 Speaker 1: any kind of scrutiny in this particular case. The local 1439 01:31:11,479 --> 01:31:14,719 Speaker 1: cops outright said that they probably wouldn't even have arrested 1440 01:31:14,760 --> 01:31:17,360 Speaker 1: him at all if he'd burned a towel instead of 1441 01:31:17,400 --> 01:31:21,679 Speaker 1: a flag. It was the flag that had people worked up, 1442 01:31:22,560 --> 01:31:24,559 Speaker 1: but the First Amendment right to burn a flag is 1443 01:31:24,960 --> 01:31:29,320 Speaker 1: well trod legal territory. He ultimately pled down to a 1444 01:31:29,360 --> 01:31:33,479 Speaker 1: misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, So the court hasn't really ever 1445 01:31:33,560 --> 01:31:38,160 Speaker 1: had to deal with this burning object law until now. 1446 01:31:40,320 --> 01:31:45,760 Speaker 1: You see, seven years ago, hundreds of torch bearing white 1447 01:31:45,840 --> 01:31:49,280 Speaker 1: supremacists marched through the grounds of the University of Virginia. 1448 01:31:50,520 --> 01:31:54,240 Speaker 1: They'd come to Charlesville from across the country, taking Friday 1449 01:31:54,280 --> 01:31:56,920 Speaker 1: morning flights or taking turns at the wheel for cross 1450 01:31:56,960 --> 01:31:59,400 Speaker 1: country drives, and rented vans with guys they met on 1451 01:31:59,400 --> 01:32:03,840 Speaker 1: message board. Arriving early before the big event the next day, 1452 01:32:05,120 --> 01:32:07,160 Speaker 1: they gathered in a field near the tennis courts and 1453 01:32:07,240 --> 01:32:12,240 Speaker 1: lined up two by two, torches in hand. Men with 1454 01:32:12,320 --> 01:32:15,800 Speaker 1: walkie talkies clipped to their belts, some with wired earpieces 1455 01:32:16,200 --> 01:32:21,240 Speaker 1: barked orders. Elliott Kleine, an ambitious young white nationalist organizer 1456 01:32:21,280 --> 01:32:26,040 Speaker 1: calling himself Eli Moseley after twentieth century British fascist Oswald Moseley, 1457 01:32:26,920 --> 01:32:29,439 Speaker 1: shouted at the crowd as they formed into a line. 1458 01:32:31,280 --> 01:32:33,640 Speaker 1: So we're going around right through, and anyone who we 1459 01:32:33,680 --> 01:32:35,040 Speaker 1: packed for the journey, let us know if we can 1460 01:32:35,080 --> 01:32:39,080 Speaker 1: do it all right, We're picking big guys, no female. 1461 01:32:41,200 --> 01:32:44,400 Speaker 1: Klein was selecting the biggest marchers to lay down their torches, 1462 01:32:45,520 --> 01:32:50,040 Speaker 1: they might need their hands free. The march wound its 1463 01:32:50,040 --> 01:32:53,280 Speaker 1: way through the university grounds, up the lawn, and then 1464 01:32:53,360 --> 01:32:56,400 Speaker 1: up the steps of the University of Virginia's iconic rotunda 1465 01:32:57,600 --> 01:32:59,560 Speaker 1: on the other side of the rotunda, gathered near a 1466 01:32:59,560 --> 01:33:04,120 Speaker 1: statue Thomas Jefferson, a small group of anti racist activists waited. 1467 01:33:05,680 --> 01:33:08,680 Speaker 1: In her testimony during a later civil trial, one of 1468 01:33:08,720 --> 01:33:12,400 Speaker 1: the women who was terrorized that night said, when we 1469 01:33:12,479 --> 01:33:16,679 Speaker 1: heard the roaring of the approaching crowd, we just linked 1470 01:33:16,840 --> 01:33:22,360 Speaker 1: arms and held hands and started to sing. She said 1471 01:33:22,360 --> 01:33:39,920 Speaker 1: at first it sounded like thunder, like the earth was growling. 1472 01:33:49,200 --> 01:33:51,920 Speaker 1: As the sound grew closer, but before she could see 1473 01:33:51,920 --> 01:33:54,639 Speaker 1: the light of the torches, she began to make out 1474 01:33:54,640 --> 01:33:59,799 Speaker 1: the chance hundreds of voices raised in unison, shouting blood 1475 01:34:00,080 --> 01:34:05,800 Speaker 1: and soil. Testifying about that night years later, she said 1476 01:34:05,840 --> 01:34:09,720 Speaker 1: she still hears it in her nightmare sometimes, and by 1477 01:34:09,720 --> 01:34:12,760 Speaker 1: the time that small group of mostly students realized the 1478 01:34:12,800 --> 01:34:16,439 Speaker 1: magnitude and ferocity of the approaching mob, it was too late. 1479 01:34:17,560 --> 01:34:19,720 Speaker 1: They were surrounded at the base of the statue by 1480 01:34:19,880 --> 01:34:25,839 Speaker 1: hundreds of torch wielding white supremacists for just a few minutes, 1481 01:34:26,680 --> 01:34:28,719 Speaker 1: minutes that those trapped at the base of the statue 1482 01:34:28,760 --> 01:34:31,240 Speaker 1: said they believed might be their last, as they were 1483 01:34:31,240 --> 01:34:35,840 Speaker 1: doused in lighter fluid, maced, kicked, and punched. There was 1484 01:34:35,880 --> 01:34:42,240 Speaker 1: a melee after the crowd dispersed that night and after 1485 01:34:42,280 --> 01:34:45,639 Speaker 1: the deadly rally the next morning, those men went home. 1486 01:34:46,720 --> 01:34:51,960 Speaker 1: Some started businesses, some joined the military, others got kicked 1487 01:34:52,000 --> 01:34:56,719 Speaker 1: out of the military, and some did both. Some died 1488 01:34:57,160 --> 01:35:00,799 Speaker 1: of heart attacks and drug overdoses and self inflicted gunshot wounds. 1489 01:35:01,880 --> 01:35:05,519 Speaker 1: They beat their wives and choked their girlfriends, went to 1490 01:35:05,520 --> 01:35:11,080 Speaker 1: grad school, went to prison, trafficked drugs, started families, got divorced, 1491 01:35:11,640 --> 01:35:15,719 Speaker 1: ran for office, tried to overturn a presidential election, left 1492 01:35:15,720 --> 01:35:19,759 Speaker 1: the movement, tried to lead the movement, or just tried 1493 01:35:19,800 --> 01:35:23,559 Speaker 1: to disappear. There are as many stories as there were 1494 01:35:23,600 --> 01:35:26,479 Speaker 1: flames in the night when their voices joined us, one 1495 01:35:26,640 --> 01:35:32,679 Speaker 1: shouting Jews will not replace us, and then dousing the flames, 1496 01:35:33,600 --> 01:35:39,559 Speaker 1: going their separate ways back to the communities they came from. 1497 01:35:39,720 --> 01:35:43,760 Speaker 1: Last year, the Algumorole County Prosecutor's office decided to put 1498 01:35:43,800 --> 01:35:48,320 Speaker 1: this law to the test. This mom had burned objects, 1499 01:35:49,240 --> 01:35:53,160 Speaker 1: they had intimidated people with them. If this law was 1500 01:35:53,200 --> 01:35:56,840 Speaker 1: meant to punish anyone for anything, it was meant for 1501 01:35:56,920 --> 01:36:01,920 Speaker 1: men like this with their flaming torches. And if you're 1502 01:36:01,960 --> 01:36:04,840 Speaker 1: listening to this the day it came out, the odds 1503 01:36:04,880 --> 01:36:07,439 Speaker 1: are pretty good that I'm sitting in a little county 1504 01:36:07,439 --> 01:36:17,519 Speaker 1: courtroom with one of them right now. Weird Little Guys 1505 01:36:17,640 --> 01:36:21,440 Speaker 1: is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, 1506 01:36:21,479 --> 01:36:25,679 Speaker 1: written and recorded by me Long Kunger. Our executive producers 1507 01:36:25,680 --> 01:36:29,360 Speaker 1: are Sophie Lichtermann and Robert Evans. The show is edited 1508 01:36:29,400 --> 01:36:32,760 Speaker 1: by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The theme music was 1509 01:36:32,800 --> 01:36:36,040 Speaker 1: composed by Brad Dickert. You can email me at Weird 1510 01:36:36,040 --> 01:36:39,639 Speaker 1: Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely 1511 01:36:39,680 --> 01:36:43,240 Speaker 1: read it, but I almost certainly will not answer it. 1512 01:36:43,240 --> 01:36:45,799 Speaker 1: It's nothing personal. I don't answer any of my emails. 1513 01:36:46,840 --> 01:36:49,120 Speaker 1: You can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other 1514 01:36:49,240 --> 01:36:53,280 Speaker 1: listeners on the Weird Little Guy's subreddit. Just don't post 1515 01:36:53,320 --> 01:36:54,920 Speaker 1: anything that's going to make you one of my Weird 1516 01:36:54,920 --> 01:36:57,320 Speaker 1: Little Guys.